Decomposition analyses of recent decline in fertility of India and its major states

Ravendra K. Sharma, Regional Medical Research Centre for Tribals (ICMR)
Manju Rani, Government Degree College, Chhaprauli
Arvind Pandey, Institute for Research in Medical Statistics (ICMR), India

The main objective of this study is to examine the pattern of decline in Indian fertility and also to decompose the total decline in fertility into its important components. The Bongaart’s supply-demand framework is used to study the decline in total fertility. The model assumes fertility as a function of three components known as wanted fertility (Fw), natural fertility (Fn) and index of preference implementation (Ip). A technique suggested by Das Gupta (1991) for the decomposition of a rate, where rate is a function of three components, has been used to find out the contribution of each aforesaid component in the fertility decline. The data for present analyses has been taken from the three rounds of National Family and Health Survey (NFHS). The NFHS survey was conducted in 1992-93 (round-I), 1998-99 (round-II) and recently in 2005-06 (round-III), and it comprises almost whole country. The main objectives of these NFHS surveys were to provide state and national estimates of fertility, practice of family planning, infant and child mortality, and the utilization of health services provided to mothers and children. The total fertility rate (TFR) of India has declined to 2.68 in 2005-06 from 2.85 in 1998-99 and 3.39 in 1992-93 and similar trend of decline was observed in both rural and urban areas. Thus total fertility rate has declined by 0.71 points during NFHS-1 (1992-93) and NFHS-3 (2005-06), and 82.6% of this downturn was due to decline in wanted fertility (Fw). The Index of preference implementation (Ip) which is proxy of contraceptive use contributed to 31.9% of this recession. While natural fertility has slightly increased during aforesaid period and thus enhanced the TFR by 14.6 percent. The decompositions of decline in Fertility of rural-urban areas, different socio-economic groups are also discussed in the paper.