E-journal of All India Association for Educational Research (EJAIAER)
VOL.20 Nos: 3
& 4 September
& December, 2008
ROLE OF EDUCATION ON FERTILITY AND MORTALITY BEHAVIOUR
Pranab Barua
Jiten Hazarika
INTRODUCTION
The
three prime demographic parameters viz. - fertility, mortality and migration
depend on many socio-economic variables like- urbanization, economic condition,
role of religion, family system, occupation of the couple, social status of the
women, political factors and education. All of them have strong impact on the
all three above mentioned demographic parameters and education being one of
them also has influence on the demographic parameters. Education and fertility
have close relationship. It is because of the following reasons. Educated women
are quite conscious of having a limited family size. At an age when there have
very bright chances of having good fertility, the girls are in the colleges and
university and thus do not get children, while during this period uneducated
girls get. In many cases educated women get employed and with employment they
cannot afford to have more children. Span of child producing time in the case
of educated women is much less, as compared with illiterate women. Similarly
education has role on mortality and migration. The educated persons are more
conscious as well as aware of the health problems and so mortality is less
among them. Education is one of the important factors in the push-pull theory
of migration. Educated persons are often welcome at the source of destination
because of their skill as well as eligibility. On the other hand, uneducated
persons are not sought at the place of destination and so they have to stay at
the place of origin, even against their will.
OBJECTIVE
The
broad objective was
to trace the cause of abnormal high population growth prevailing among the
inhabitants of CHAR areas of western and middle
STUDY
AREA AND DATA
In-spite
of launching several schemes by the Assam government for upliftment
of the people living in the CHARS , the socio economic condition
of the people living
in these areas of western and
middle Assam (Nalbari and Borpeta
are two districts located in this part of Assam), as a whole
is worse than the socio –economic condition
of people living in other parts of Assam , even Majuli
(a CHAR in Jorhat district). So far as socio-economic
and demographic factors are concerned, no significant differences are observed
between the people living in Majuli and people living
in other parts of
METHODOLOGY
To
measure the role of education on fertility and mortality, educational
attainment of the female has been considered as the indicator of education, on
the other hand infant mortality (mortality within the first year of life),
marital fertility (fertility of married female i.e. only legitimate births are
considered) and usual fertility are employed as indicators of mortality and
fertility. Regarding infant mortality, percentage of infant died /alive is
computed. Again average children ever born per married female is calculated to
measure the impact of education on marital fertility. On the other hand-Age
Specific Fertility Rate (A.S.F.R.) and Total Fertility Rate (T.F.R.) are
calculated to measure the impact of education on fertility. Where A.S.F.R. for
the age group (x- x+5) is defined as 5mx = (Births to females in the age group
(x- x+5))/ (Females in the age group (x- x+5)) and T.F.R is defined as 5x? 5mx.
RESULTS
AND DISCUSSIONS
Following
are the findings based on above stated technique. It was found that literacy of
mother distinctly reduces the risk of infant mortality in comparison to
illiteracy. So by improving the educational system a check on mortality can be
made. Interestingly regarding fertility and educational status (based on
highest qualification of the female) it has been observed that fertility is
more or less low for illiterate, as revealed by A.S.F.R. or T.F.R. However in
the very early age group (15-19 years), the fertility of illiterate female is
highest except the females having education up to class –IV (L.P.), which is
almost expected since basically there is no distinction between an illiterate
married female and a female married just after pursuing education up to
class-IV. On the basis of T.F.R. it is seen that the illiterate females have
had the least fertility, the possible reason of this might be that, a small
portion of female is within the literate group
and all of these small section might be involved in the process of
reproduction. it has been seen that for all the age
groups number of females has been less
for literates than illiterates and so all of this small section might be
involved in the process of reproduction. However as the percentage of
illiterate female is much larger than the literate female so a small fertility
of these illiterate females might result in more absolute number of births. when educational attainment has gone up, marital fertility
has gone down. Thus it can be said that fertility can be checked by imparting
more and more education.
CONCLUSION
From
this study it can be said that imparting education is very much necessary there
in these areas (CHAR areas of Nalbari and Borpeta districts) because, fertility and mortality is very
high in these areas and checking these high fertility and mortality is the very
need of the time. Moreover by imparting education this can be done there in
these areas, because it has been observed that education has positive impact on
fertility and mortality reduction in these areas also.