Assessing the Impact of Couple’s Caste, Age, Educational Level on Fertility in India: Evidence from National Family Health Survey

Abstract

This study explores the association between a couple’s characteristics and women’s reproductive behaviour in India. Generally, the study on the population deals with only women considering women samples for evaluating fertility in India. The current research includes men and women to examine the effect of the differences in their caste, age and educational level on fertility behaviour in India. For this purpose, data from the National Family Health Survey-4 has been used carried out during 2015–2016. Differences in couple’s characteristics were tabulated with the children ever born to see the distribution by the caste, age and educational level differences in India. In order to obtain more accurate results, linear regression was applied to see the variation in children ever born to the couple’s characteristics and different background characteristics. We find that caste, age and education differences among couples significantly impact fertility; as these differences increase, children ever born among couples also increase. The study proposes that satisfactory educational levels have lessened the role of caste and age on fertility in India.