Fertility rate decline in Tamil Nadu.:some issues
Savitri, R.
Economic and Political Weekly 29(29): 1850-1852
1994
ISSN/ISBN: 0012-9976 Document Number: 293344
This paper identifies the factors responsible for inter-district and inter-temporal variations in fertility in Tamil Nadu, India, where a decline in fertility rates has been achieved without a decline in infant mortality rates, improvement in literacy or improvement in women's status. Analysis of inter-district variations in fertility shows that the availability of road facilities and child mortality are the most important factors influencing fertility in Tamil Nadu. Better transport facilities imply better connections between rural and urban areas. When total fertility rates were regressed with consumer price (of food grains) index of agricultural labourers, it was found that these two are highly correlated. Poverty, combined with better rural-urban linkages, seems to have influenced fertility behaviour in Tamil Nadu, which refutes the idea that the poor tend to have more children. Fertility is often a balance between the costs and benefits of having children. Rural-urban linkages have enabled rural people to take up jobs in urban areas without moving to towns. Another outcome of urban influence is that couples in rural areas want to educate their children, which means a higher cost of child rearing. Once females go out of the village to work, they naturally desire fewer children.