Child-woman Ratio Research Articles

Relationship between the Denominator Age of the Child-Woman Ratio and the Accuracy of Regional Population Projections

Relationship between the Denominator Age of the Child-Woman Ratio and the Accuracy of Regional Population Projections

Subnational Non‐Hispanic White Natural Decrease in the United States

AbstractThis research is the first to examine the prevalence and dynamics of non‐Hispanic white natural decrease in fine scale subregional units of the United States. In 2015, more non‐Hispanic Whites died than were born in 65 percent of the US counties. This is the highest incidence of non‐Hispanic white natural decrease ever reported. It results from a complex interaction among fertility, mortality, and migration over a protracted period. Spatial regression is used to identify three critical variables (over‐65 population, child–women ratio, and women of childbearing age) that are the immediate demographic causes of this natural decrease. The timely, factual information in this paper provides a demographic context for analysis of the social, political, and policy implications of this emergent demographic phenomenon.

Fertility in Albania during World War I according to the 1918 Census

Apart from Kosovo, Albania was the last country in Europe to enter demographic transition and therefore an analysis of its fertility patterns before the transition is of interest. Was it higher than in neighbouring countries or similar to them? Albania was a part of the Ottoman Empire until the Balkan Wars (1912/1913) and only with the help of the Great Powers an independent Albania managed to emerge. In 1916, the Austro-Hungarian army invaded Albania and occupied the northern and central parts of the country, while the south was occupied by the troops of the Allied Powers. During the time of the Austro-Hungarian occupation, a census was carried out in 1918 and most of the manuscripts have survived. To analyse the level and structure of fertility patterns in Albania, the author refers to these data applying the child-woman ratio. The analysis demonstrates that in Albanian rural areas during World War I, fertility rate was lower than in neighbouring countries one or two decades before, while urban marital fertility was higher than in most of the neighbouring countries. In Albania, marital fertility was almost the same for rural and urban areas, while there were some variations between rural areas and cities. The reason for a very low fertility of young married women is still an open question.

Bayesian estimation of total fertility from a population's age–sex structure

We investigate a modern statistical approach to a classic deterministic demographic estimation technique. When vital event registration is missing or inadequate, it is possible to approximate a population's total fertility rate (TFR) from information about its distribution by age and sex. For example, if under-five child mortality is low then TFR is often close to seven times the child/woman ratio (CWR), the number of 0–4 year olds per 15–49-year-old woman. We analyse the formal relationship between CWR and TFR to identify sources of uncertainty in indirect estimates. We construct a Bayesian model for the statistical distribution of TFR conditional on the population's age–sex structure, in which unknown demographic quantities in the standard approximation are parameters with prior distributions. We apply the model in two case studies: to a small indigenous population in the Amazon region of Brazil that has extremely high fertility rates, and to the set of 159 counties in the US state of Georgia. A statistical approach yields important insights into the sources of error in indirect estimation, and their relative magnitudes.

Indirect Estimation of Selected Measures of Fertility and Marital Fertility from Information on CWR (0-9): An Application to India /States /Districts

Fertility is one of the important components of population change, the other two being mortality and migration. When vital statistical data on number of births is readily available it is estimated directly using various direct measures of fertility such as the crude birth rate (CBR). When the information on number of births is not directly available, fertility is measured using the census information on child woman ratios (CWR) of various types. CWR has several limitations, but gained importance with the attempts made by Rele in 1963, and followed by several other researchers such as Hauer and his co-authors in 2013 deriving TFR from it. In the present study yet another attempt is made to use CWRs to derive not only TFR but also other summary indicators such as the TMFR. A set of simple mathematical formula have been used to estimate the fertility and marital fertility using the CWR of the ages 0-9. The 2011 census age-sex data of districts in India was used to derive a set of fertility estimates for total, rural and urban areas of all districts. Further, these estimates of 2011 have been compared with the estimates of 2011 earlier made by Guilmoto and Rajan to analyse the robustness of the estimates. Keywords : Fertility, Child Women Ratio, Indirect Estimation, Age-sex data, TFR, TMFR, India.

Differential factors of fertility in South India.

This paper analyzes fertility differentials in south India in terms of economic and social development. The areas analyzed here are the 4 southern states: Andra Pradesh Kerala Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The region is examined 1st with factors analysis using 33 variables concerning the indicators of the demographic structure of the labor force agricultural structure education medical care and religion. The analysis extracted 5 factors: 1) labor force characteristics 2) the level of social development 3) family structure 4) agricultural characteristics and 5) urbanity. The industrial structure of the region is characteristically labor-intensive agriculture. Women and children typically participate in agriculture and most of them are less educated. Regression analysis using variables from the factor analysis extracted 5 variables: 1) child labor 2) the female literacy rate and the population per doctor 3) the proportion of never married women 4) population per cultivated land and 5) the labor force participation rate in the primary industry and the proportion urban. Using these as independent variables the regression equation for the child-woman ratio is estimated. The model explains 48.4% of the total variance in the child-woman ratio in the 4 states. Among variables child labor and population density per cultivated land are statistically significant. The estimated result shows that the necessity of having a large labor force in the agricultural sector makes the fertility rate higher. 3rdly the authors estimate the regression equation including only those variables which are statistically significant in the model: child labor and population per cultivated land. The educational level is also added to these variables. The model cannot explain the regional variances of the child-woman ratio for Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In Andra Pradesh the necessity of child labor in agriculture makes fertility higher. In Karnataka education has a positive effect on fertility decline.

Fertility, Religion and Female Literacy: Analysis of 2001 Population Census of India

Fertility differentials among the Hindus and the Muslims in India are a matter of concern, which attracts scholars of different disciplines not only in India, but also outside as well. But surprisingly systematic analysis of fertility pattern among these religion sub groups has not been forthcoming. The ‘Census 2001’, for the first time, published different demographic information on the basis of religion sub-groups. Using that gold mine data set, this paper describes the spatial pattern of Child Women Ratio (CWR) among Hindus and Muslims with the help of statistical as well as GIS mapping technique. Significant CWR variations have been observed with definite regional pattern. Considering female literacy and religion identity as the two important factors that can affect Child Women Ratio, this paper shows differential impacts of the explanatory variables in describing Child Women Ratio variations. Partial regression analysis and decomposition of variance of Child Women Ratio do clearly indicate that the female literacy contributes more in explaining Child Women Ratio variations among these communities. Unpacking the Child Women Ratio pattern at the region and also at the state level however indicates different degree of influence of female literacy in explaining Child Women Ratio variations. Two major patterns of districts are forthcoming. On the one hand there are districts where female literacy is substantially predominant and on the other, there are districts where religion identity picks up a major part of the explanation provided by the female literacy in explaining Child Women Ratio variations. Furthermore it shows the relative effectiveness of the ‘religion difference in female literacy’ in explaining the ‘religion difference in Child Women Ratios’. District disaggregated maps clearly indicate greater efficiency of female literacy in explaining CWR variations among the Muslims. The study concludes by advocating further improvement in female literacy in Indian districts with a clear focus on improving the education status of Muslim females. A convergent action plan has been proposed by incorporating the line departments along with agencies working on reproductive health issues.

Testing child-woman ratios and the own-children method on the 1900 Sweden census: Examples of indirect fertility estimates by socioeconomic status in a historical population

ABSTRACTFocusing on the Swedish census of 1900, the child-woman ratio and own-children method have been applied to assess socioeconomic differences in fertility. These indirect estimates of fertility have been compared to the vital statistics at the national level to assess their reliability. This comparison demonstrated that the estimated results suffered from few errors. Even if these indirect estimates of fertility could be affected by possible socioeconomic differences in mortality, the tests show that at least in the Swedish case, the impact of mortality on the indirect measures is limited. As infant mortality differences by socioeconomic status are relatively small, indirect fertility estimates are mainly affected by differences in reproductive behavior.

Russia’s Birth Rate Dynamics Forecasting

This article covers contemporary issues of Russia’s population reproduction, their causes and the state policy aimed to overcome the same. The urgency to fulfill the task related to assessment of the most probable future dynamics of Russia’s population birth rate in the context of a low child-woman ratio, and subject to an impact of pronatalist policies implemented by the state, is justified. In order to fulfill the task based on the crude birth rate behavior probability distribution function, a probabilistic assessment of future dynamics of Russia’s population reproduction has been carried out. Based on a modernized method suggested by Hurst, the following two forecasting paths of the crude birth rate dynamics have been built: the first path conforms to the scenario where a value of the crude birth rate is to tend to values between 8–10.5 births/1,000 people (probability is 0.182), in particular, through a negative external impact, the second path is to tend to values between 13–16.5 births/1,000 people (probability — 0.618), in particular, through a positive external impact. Notwithstanding that these scenarios significantly differ from each other, the paths of the crude birth rate dynamics for 2015–2041, corresponding to the reliable prediction time, forecasted according to the abovementioned scenarios, are virtually identical. The analysis of the findings allowed for the conclusion that the state demographic policy is not capable of having a significant impact on the future dynamics of the birth rate, substantially determined by the current situation and conjuncture shifts. These conclusions confirm the view prevailing in academic circles and suggesting that the state regulation of Russia’s demographic situation should be primarily focused on the improvement in health and a rise in the life expectancy of the population.

Changing Age Structures and Ageing Scenario of the Arab World

The Arab World, composed of 22 member states of the Arab League, undergoes a rapid transition in demographic front in terms of fertility, mortality, and migration. It is a distinctive geographic region that extends across the Western Asia and North East Africa, united by Arabic language, and that shares common values and characteristics, despite the diversity in economic and political conditions. The demographic lag that characterizes the Arab World is unique, but the present trend of declining fertility combined with the existing relatively low mortality exerts pressures on age structures, thereby influencing an ageing population phenomena. The current research aimed to (1) explore changes in age structure over a period of 3 decades and (2) assess the ageing situation. Based on the International Data Base (IDB) of US Census Bureau, for 3 periods—1992, 2002, and 2012, 21 countries of the Arab World (Palestine excluded because data were not available) were analyzed by dividing them into four geographic sectors: Gulf Cooperation Council, West Asia, Maghreb, and Nile Valley African Horn. Changing age structures with decreasing young cohorts accompanied by increasing adult cohorts constrict and influence the age pyramids. The ageing scenario, further revealed through child–woman ratio, aged–child ratio, median age, and age–dependency ratio indicates changes with differences across sectors. Changes in age structures and ageing in the Arab World can be delineated into four geographic sectors. Population growth influences the age structure in line with the increasing proportion of adolescents and youths but a decreasing proportion of children, leading to ageing of the population.

Fertility Performance of the Anal Women of Lambung Village, Chandel District, Manipur

The data for the present study comprise of 200 ever-married Anal women. The present study aims to find out the fertility performance of the Anal women of Lambung Village, Chandel District, Manipur. Moreover an attempt is also made to find out the factors that affect fertility such as age at marriage, education and economic status. The Child Women Ratio, Crude Birth Rate, General Fertility Rate and Total Fertility Rate of the Anal Naga are found to be 227.96,11.4,33.43 and 4.3 respectively. The present study reveals that age at marriage, education and economic status of women has an impact on fertility.

Demography of the Santals in West Bengal and Jharkhand: A Comparative Study

A systematic micro demographic study with special emphasis on sex-ratio (Female Male ratio or FMR) patterns among the Santals in nineteen villages of the bordering districts of the states of West Bengal and Jharkhand comprises 2257 male and 2135 female individuals. Sex-ratio patterns among the Santals exhibit low FMR (946), compared to the all-India FMR ST , 972 (Census of India, 1991). However, the average FMR (946) of the Santals in this area, has been found to be little higher than the average FMR ST (941 in Census of India, 1991) of these two neighbouring states. Santals of Jharkhand also show higher FMR (964) in comparison with those of West Bengal (935). FMR of all age goups among the Santals in Jharkhand exceed the FMR of the Santals in West Bengal, except that in the age-group of 10-14 years. In both the states, a decline of FMR 59 from FMR 04 indicates a trend of excess girl-child mortality among the Santals. However, a decadal increment of FMR among the Santals in this region is observed from the higher value of FMR 0 9 than FMR 10 19 . Substantial female labour participation (FLP) is reflected from FMR 15 44 and FMR 15 64 among the Santals, especially those of Jharkhand. Further, percentage of persons (0 4 years and 0 14 years), work-participation rate and age-dependency ratio are found to be higher among the Santals of Jharkhand. In contrast, child-woman ratio and percentage of old-age population among the Santals of West Bengal are recorded as higher than the Santals of Jharkhand.

Swings in Fertility Limitation in Iran

The issue of demographic transition has become a principle preoccupation of demographers during the last few decades. As explained by some scholars,1 the omnipresent differentials in the trends and...

Fertility determinants in the oil region of Mexico.

This study analyzes fertility determinants in the oil region of Mexico, consisting of the states of Veracruz, Tabasco, and Campeche. Data are from the 1980 Mexican census and the unit of analysis is the municipio. The regression models, in which the dependent variables of children ever born and child-woman ratio are examined, reveal religious variables to be most significant, with greater fertility for non-Catholics and persons with no religion than for Catholics. Also of great importance are economic variables. Literacy and urbanization, both "classical" Mexican fertility variables, reduce fertility. There are major differences among three urban/rural and three indigenous language subsamples. Results are discussed vis-a-vis demographic theories and prior research.

"Early" fertility decline in America: a problem in family history.

A striking peculiarity of American demographic history is its compara tively early decline in fertility. Although some of the decrease before the Civil War may be attributed to later and less universal marriage, marital fertility also fell Past scholar ship on the subject has focused on alternative explanations and statistical approaches to cross-sectional variations in the child-woman ratio. After showing the inherent limita tions of this approach, particularly at the level of states, this article draws on the findings of historians of political behavior and women's activities to suggest that the understand ing of the early decline in marital fertility in the United States may be most profitably pursued through the study of the fertility behavior and values of the principal action- groups of antebellum America: religious, ethnic, and economic. Both the motivations for, and possibly the techniques of, family limitation were transmitted and sustained, this hypothesis contends, through membership and participation in these groups.

Prolific immigrants and dwindling natives?: fertility patterns in western Massachusetts, 1850 and 1880.

This comparative demographic study used household-level manuscript census data to explore ethnic, occupational, and rural-urban differences in fertili ty. The study region comprised two western Massachusetts counties which ex perienced industrialization, urbanization, and immigration throughout the nine teenth century. We collected one-in-ten samples of households from the federal manuscript censuses of fifteen communities. We sampled the same communities in 1850 and 1880, and coded detailed characteristics of over 2,400 households. In addition to counting the number of preteenage children in each household, we used information on the ages of women and children to estimate the length of the childbearing span. In so doing, we could refine the child-woman ratio by stan dardizing it according to the number of years a currently married woman had been at risk of bearing a child-since age 25 or since the birth of her first child. We then employed age standardization and multiple classification analysis in an attempt to rule out competing explanations of native-immigrant differences. A djustments for age at maternity and wives' age distribution rendered the Irish most prolific, but the French Canadians and 1850 natives were not far behind. Evidently, Irish and French-Canadian women had longer childbearing spans than native women in both census years, and slightly earlier maternity. The statistical adjustments failed to explain the low fertility of the 1880 natives, suggesting that they were more effective than other groups in limiting marital fertility. While fer tility levels of immigrants and 1850 natives were quite similar to those of their contemporaries in England and America, the 1880 natives were clearly atypical. By 1880, native fertility probably had dwindled to a level other American groups would not reach until after World War I. The changing occupational structure helped to magnify native-immigrant differences. Families with semiskilled and unskilled heads tended to be larger than those headed by farmers, skilled craft smen, and white-collar workers. The low and declining fertility of the middle- class natives was especially noteworthy.

Agricultural Variation and Human Fertility in Antebellum Pennsylvania

Focus in this discussion is on research designed to examine human fertility variation in 59 Pennsylvania counties in 1850 and 1860. The research goes beyond previous historical studies in examining the relationship between land quality and fertility and in separating the possible impacts of settlement from the availability of land for agricultural purposes. The measure of human fertility used in the analysis was the child-woman ratio, defined as the number of children aged 0-4/1000 white women aged 15-49. In 1850 the child-woman ratio ranged from 488-889. The child-woman ratio fell slightly between 1850 and 1860, and county level variation was reduced. Yet, Pennsylvania counties varied substantially in fertility levels during this period. The range between the highest and lowest fertility countries was over 400 children in 1850 and almost 350 in 1860. The set of agricultural variables displayed expected differences at the 2 time periods. The excess demand for farmsites increased between 1850 and 1860, while the variation in demand decreased by over one-half, reflecting additional settlement within all acres of the state. The settlement ratio increased over the decade; the sex ratio declined, most likely in response to outmigration westward. The agricultural variables were all negatively related to the child-woman ratio and were statistically significant, except for the labor/acre variable. The strongest correlation in 1850 was between the excess demand for farmsites and fertility. This coefficient indicated that the greater the excess demand for farmsites, the lower the child-woman ratio. This relationship was attentuated somewhat for 1860, yet it continued to be negative and statistically significant. The socioeconomic and demographic variables were all related to fertility in the expected direction, but only 5 of the 7 correlations were statistically significant in 1850 and 6 in 1860. The settlement ratio, sex ratio, percent urban, distance to urban place, and the measure of female age composition were all significantly related to fertility in 1850 and 1860. The study results support the growing body of research which has identified agricultural opportunity as a significant factor in fertility in rural areas of 19th century America. The findings also suggest that the importance of agricultural opportunity extended beyond the frontier period.

Regional variations of fertility in Iraq and factors affecting it.

SummaryA study of the differentials in fertility of Iraq's Mohafadhas, and the association of fertility with various socio-cultural factors, is handicapped for want of the reliable vital statistics from which measures of fertility can be satisfactorily derived. The alternative method, using a simple measure of fertility, the child–woman ratio, which requires only a knowledge of the population in age groups is therefore used. Since this measure is computed from census statistics, it is affected by differences in enumeration errors and in mortality and migration. An attempt has been made in this paper to keep these factors constant by using a modified child–woman ratio for comparing fertility levels.The analysis showed that fertility rates vary from region to region, between Mohafadhas within a region and between rural and urban areas. One important broad geographic variation was that the Northern region was the area of high fertility. For the Mohafadhas, significant differences were noted in only six of the sixteen Mohafadhas of Iraq. Rural–urban difference was minimal, with few exceptions, and it was not always in the same direction. The intra-rural variations in the fertility ratio were far more important than intra-urban differences.Correlation analysis showed that the average age at marriage, the proportion never married and the sex ratio in the reproductive ages were the important factors in explaining fertility differences between Mohafad has. There was virtually no correlation between fertility and urbanization or literacy.

Constructing fertility tables for Soviet populations

Because the 1970 Soviet Union census does not provide information on the age structure of men and women separately by sex and according to their ethnic affiliation, the 1959 USSR census data serve as the basis to infer knowledge about ethnic fertility. The model takes into account (1) the total number of births in 1960, estimated from the child-woman ratio in 1959, (2) the age structure of women in 1959, and (3) the assumed pattern of age-specific birth rates structured in terms of the modal age at childbearing and the length of the fertility age span. The results show that Ukrainians among the Slav populations ranked as the lowest with 2.07 children born per woman. Their total fertility contrasts with that of Kazakhs native to Central Asia, who reportedly according to Soviet sources had 7.46 children per woman in 1958-1959, and whose estimated rate is around 8.59 children. Extreme variations appear in the estimates of fertility among nationalities of the Caucasus region, Volga Basin, and to a lesser degree in Siberia. Official Soviet calculations of crude birth rates and age-specific rates for 15 Union Republics in 1967-1968 are transcribed and compared with the estimates for nationalities in 1959-1960. The same theoretical model used to generate the Soviet rates may be adapted under different assumptions to non-Soviet populations in other situations where the data are scanty or incomplete.

Relation of marriage and education to fertility in the U.S.S.R.

Abstract One-half of the variation in Soviet fertility as measured by the child-woman ratio is attributable to the proportion of married women in the 20-24 age group. The familar sociological hypothesis of an inverse relation between human fertility and education also is fully substantiated with data for the 36 major ethnic groups in the U.S.S.R. The second and third best predicting variables fall into the two extreme age groups: (a) those 16 to 19 years of age with more than seven years of school completed and (b) those men and women aged 60 and over with the equivalent formal education. Results of this study support the modified hypothesis that complements previously publicized findings. It asserts that variations in fertility attributable to the traditionally religious values can be explained in terms of the age-specific marriage and educational differentials known to have existed in the past and still characteristic of the multi-national society in the Soviet Union.