Partitioning the Effect of Infant and Child Death on Subsequent Fertility: An Exploration in Bangladesh

Abstract

A method of partitioning the fertility impact of infant and child death into two components – a physiological and a behavioural effect – is proposed by use of the Cox hazard model with three dummy variables that indicate the time of child death and the status of breastfeeding with reference to the return of menstruation postpartum. An application of the method to the 1991 Bangladesh Contraceptive Prevalence Survey data suggests that the effect from the physiological mechanism outweighed the effect from the behaviourial mechanism (the former effect raising the hazard of an additional birth by nearly 90 per cent). It appears that the effect of a child death declined over time and an early cessation of breastfeeding was not the sole cause for invoking the physiological mechanism. The risk of childbirth rose sharply among the educated if their children died, although the main effect of education itself was to reduce the risk.