Modification in the Bongaart's Model and Evaluation of Proximate Determinants of Fertility in India

Fertility has a central importance for the study of Population Change in developing countries. India is one of the largest countries (population wise) and thus large variation is observed in fertility due to the fact that there are variations in geographical, environmental and behavioral factors. This variation in fertility is generally examined in terms of socio-economic factors such as education, income, caste, place of residence by several demographers. In the very beginning Davis and Black in 1956 suggested 11 socio-economic and cultural intermediate variables which affect fertility and later on Bongaarts in 1978 selected four important variables such as proportion of females married, prevalence of contraceptive use, incidence of induced abortion and the fertility inhibiting effect on breastfeeding which are known as proximate determinants to explain the human fertility. In the present study, logical modifications have been done to measure fertility level by introducing some intermediate variables. These modifications have been justified with the help of NFHS-III data. The estimates of total fertility rates (TFRs) obtained by modified method has been compared with the TFR observed by Bongaarts method for the different major states of India.