Child Survival and Changing Fertility Patterns in Pakistan

Abstract

Most earlier research, based on the theory of the demographic transition, focused on the association between mortality decline as a precedent to fertility decline. Whereas most of Europe experienced declines in mortality prior to fertility declines, even there the evidence is not conclusive that declines in mortality always preceded changes in fertility [Knodel and Van de Walle (1979)]. In most Asian countries which have experienced demographic transitions in the recent past mortality and fertility have declined in close succession. The position being taken here is that in certain settings substantial fertility declines, or at least an alteration in fertility patterns, may be a prerequisite to substantial declines in child mortality. The association between fertility patterns and child survival is to be investigated with a view to analysing the likely effects of changes in fertility patterns on chances of child survival.