Fertility in Bangladesh: Facts and Fancies

Maternal factors and infant and child mortality in Bangladesh

“…The year of birth estimates show that infant mortality declined after the late 1950s and the early 1960s until the late 1960s, when the trend was reversed. This trend in infant mortality is also indicated in other studies of Bangladesh (Islam, 1981;Sirageldin, Norris & Ahmad, 1975), and suggests that the reversal of the mortality trend occurred after the country's independence in 1971, due to deterioration of the economy.…”

Socioeconomic Factors, Intermediate Variables and Fertility in Bangladesh

“…If only the period estimate for the survey cross-section of previous studies is considered, the total fertility rate appears to have declined (Table 6). Our estimate from the World Fertility Survey is 5-89 for 1974-75; it was 6-93 in 1966-68 (Sirageldin et al, 1975), and 7-45 in 1957-60 (Schultz, 1972. The recent level of fertility may have been depressed as a result of the 1974 famine in Bangladesh, but the magnitude of the decline from the late 1950s to the present suggests not only that the wide fluctuations in fertility rates, reported previously when retrospective data were included, were a function of measurement problems, but also that the fertility decline may be accounted for by a reduction of mortality in Bangladesh.…”

“…Having noted the negative effect of age on cumulative fertility, perhaps linked to fecundity impairment with age, a final reflection on previous reports of fertility decline in the 1950s and 1960s is in order. It is of course possible that the fertility level may have been somewhat suppressed during recent decades as child survival improved (Sirageldin et al, 1975). However, a synthetic estimate of period fertility tracing backwards from a cross-sectional sample of women may be biased in the following way.…”

Asian Marriage Patterns in Transition

“…In all four instances the decline in Iem appears to have accelerated in the postwar period. It is noteworthy that early twentieth cen-vey of 1968-1969 in Pakistan (Smith, forthcoming; Limanonda, 1976;Sirageldin, 1975). That vital registration estimates of age at marriage can sometimes reflect no more than short-run changes in age composition is noted by Chang (1974:96ff.…”