Socio-economic differentials in fertility in East Java 1980 : an areal analysis

Abstract

This study is an attempt to explore the association between the differences in areal socio-economic conditions and fertility across the regions in East Java. The total fertility rates (TFR) by regions are calculated based on the 1980 Population Census using Rele's method. Ten indicators of socio-economic conditions are taken from sources such as the 1980 Population Census and family planning service statistics. The 29 regencies are the units of analysis in this study. Inclusion of the 8 municipalities was found to raise spurious correlations between measure of fertility and socio-economic conditions. This is probably because the municipalities, which are mostly urban areas, have as a group very different socio-economic conditions from those of the regencies. From the correlation and regression analyses used to examine the relationships between fertility level and selected indicators, it was found that the areal differences in fertility in East Java are associated with areal differences in demographic indicators (specifically the percentage of women aged 15-49 who currently married and infant mortality rate) rather than with other indicators. In the regression analysis, the percentage of women aged 15-49 who currently married and the infant mortality rate are able to explain the variation in fertility among the regencies by 38% and 24% respectively. However, TFR and the percentage of women aged 15-49 who currently married were found to have an inverse relationship, contrary to what might be expected. This raises questions about the accuracy of the measures used, and therefore, this study needs to be verified with further research using other types of data and analysis. Show more