Given the intrinsically sequential nature of child birth, timing of a child’s birth has consequences not only for itself, but also for the older and younger siblings. The paper thus argues that prior and posterior spacing between consecutive siblings are important measures of the intensity of competition among siblings for limited parental resources. While the available estimates of child morta...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES The level of infant and child mortality is high among Scheduled Tribes particularly those living in rural areas. This study examines levels, trends and socio-demographic factors associated with infant and child mortality among Scheduled Tribes in rural areas. METHODS Data from the three rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) of India from 1992 to 2006 were ...

High rates of infant mortality in Africa continue to be a major public health concern today, despite the fact that most deaths can be prevented from well known, relatively low cost technologies. Using multiple years of DHS from four countries, we estimate the change in the relative risk of death as well as the main contributions to the change in mortality over time. We find significant declines...

Even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1999 declared family planning to be one of the 10 most significant U.S. public health achievements of the 20th century, half of all pregnancies in the United States are still unintended. And the consequences of unintended pregnancy can be serious, even life-altering, particularly for women who are young or unmarried, have just recent...

In this paper we explore the relation between changes in reproductive behavior, such as those that might result from an effective family planning program in developing countries, and changes in child and maternal mortality. Specifically, we use the results from recent multivariate studies to estimate the changes in mortality that might result from altering maternal age, birth order, and birth s...

Marital Fertility and Religion: Recent Changes in Spain Since the onset of democracy in 1975, both total fertility and Mass attendance rates in Spain have dropped dramatically. I use the 1985 and 1999 Spanish Fertility Surveys to study whether the significance of religion in fertility behavior – both in family size and in the spacing of births – has changed. While in the 1985 SFS family size wa...

In seeking for more effective ways of fertility control and improvement of maternal and child health through birth spacing in a predominantly patrilineal society like Nigeria, this study explores how the sex of a previous child affects birth interval among ethnic groups, controlling for demographic and socioeconomic variables. The study utilized birth history data from the 2008 Nigeria Demograp...

Dynamic panel data model of infant deaths, birth spacing and contraception are estimated incorporating causal effects of birth spacing on subsequent mortality and of mortality on the use of contraceptives and the length of next birth interval. Data come from the renowned demographic field Health and Demographic Surveillance System in the icddr,b treatment area in Matlab, Bangladesh, on 31,968 c...