The Impact of the Proximate Determinants of Fertility: Evaluating Bongaarts's and Hobcraft and Little's Methods of Estimation

Abstract

How well do Bongaarts's and Hobcraft and Little's methods estimate the fertility-reducing impact of the proximate determinants of fertility? Since we cannot observe what the methods estimate (i.e. fertility in the absence of the inhibiting factors), reproductive histories of a population of women are simulated to learn what the quantities are that the methods can only estimate, the ‘true’ values of Cm, Cc, Ca and Ci. When fertility behaviour is random, both methods work well; however, under more realistic conditions the methods go awry. Neither method works well when women employ stopping behaviour once they have achieved their desired family size. While the simulations do not attempt to incorporate the innumerable complexities of fertility behaviours, the incorporation of the simplest family-building strategy leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the methods yield poor estimates of the fertility-reducing impacts of marriage delay, contraceptive use, and induced abortions.