Social Structure and Fertility

This book is intended to reveal the actual process underlying fertility researches have focused on exploring the relationship between explanatory variables viz. caste, education, occupation, income, family structure etc. and fertility, but how and through what process do these variables operate affect fertility decisions is yet to be deciphered. The present study tries to explain the relationship between the explanatory variables and fertility with the help of proximate variables. The proximate variables used in this study are inter-spouse communication, caste-consciousness, conformity to family ethical codes, modernization, sense of security, exposure to printed media and contraception. They operate through explanatory variables and expressively explain the actual process underlying fertility decisions. They may also be termed the socio-psychological correlates of fertility. This book will prove useful to students of fertility research in addition to proving a text-book for students of population studies and evaluation methodology.