Modernization, Contraception and Fertility Change in India

Abstract

Indian fertility levels prior to the introduction of birth control were moderately high yet below levels observed in many developing countries. Despite early marriage and the universality of marriage in India periods of sexual abstinence and other cultural practices are believed to have kept the level of natural fertility lower than in European societies and to have resulted in a fertility pattern in which Indian women completed childbearing relatively early. By weakening such practices as breastfeeding and sexual abstinence modernization seems to have increased the levels of natural fertility: Marital fertility rates rose between 1951 and 1975 despite increases in contraceptive practice and an increase since the beginning of the century in the age at marriage from approximately 13 to 18 years among girls. An analysis of 1972 and 1984 fertility data for a number of Indian states shows that while some states experienced declines in the general marital fertility rate of approximately 30% the decline in others was less than 10%. In addition total fertility rates in the states ranged widely from 2.4 to 5.9 children per women in 1984. Of the variables considered the adult female literacy rate was found to be most closely associated with the total fertility rate. Interstate differences in fertility rates were found to be closely tied to differences in the proportion of couples protected by modern contraception which ranged from 12-40% in 1984.