Family planning in India: a worm's eye view from a rural area in South India
Caldwell, J.C.; Caldwell, P.
South Asia 5(1): 51-53
1982
ISSN/ISBN: 0085-6401 DOI: 10.1080/00856408208723029Document Number: 495705
A report is made on research carried out during a 3-year project in nine villages 125 kilometres from Bangalore. In this area, birth rates have declined from over 40 per thousand to under 30 per thousand in the last 20 years. This is in agreement with the generally accepted picture that fertility in India has fallen during that period by perhaps one-fifth, with the greatest declines being in the South. Birth rates in the area have never been extremely high due to three major constraints, which are discussed. Apart from these constraints there appears to have been no traditional contraceptive practice. The research project produced convincing evidence that there is now a considerable demand for family planning to restrict the ultimate size of the family, and that this has been the product of changes in the internal family economy over the last third of a century.