Effect of infant mortality on subsequent fertility of women in Jordan: A life table analysis.

Abstract

The proportional hazards models of birth intervals based on the data from the 1976 Jordan Fertility Survey indicate that in Jordan the influence of infant death on subsequent fertility is not uniform among all population subgroups. Child survival seems to have only minimal influence on fertility among women at low birth orders and less educated women. The fertility of women with low education is consistently high consequently there is little room for fertility to be decreased by the death of an infant. On the other hand the fertility of women in the highest educational category is relatively low. The World Fertility Survey results show that women in this category tend to breastfeed their children for a shorter period and tend to use contraception more often. This latter practice is therefore the main determinant of low fertility among these women. The increase in the probability of a birth for this educational class after a childs death can be regarded as a result of the motivation to replace the lost child. The loss of a child significantly increases the subsequent fertility of women of all birth orders but the effect increases with birth order. Breastfeeding is common among orders but the use of contraception is more prevalent among women in the highest birth order. The results show that the motivation to use contraception is perhaps higher when the child survives that when it dies. Thus in the higher birth order category both the lactational effect and that of contraceptive use are operating whereas differences in the birth probabilities by the survival of the previous infant in the lower birth order category may result from the lactational effect only. The impact of infant death is similar among rural and urban women. Further analysis shows that the observed differences in the birth intervals of women with and without infant death experience cannot be attributed to the fecundity differentials of these 2 groups of women. The findings here reported have important implications for programs designed to reduce fertility. Women in the highest educational class normally exhibit low fertility but those who experience child loss tend to have higher subsequent fertility. It is suggested that special family planning programs should be aimed at this group of women.