Relationship between infant and child mortality and fertility--an enquiry into goan women.
OBJECTIVE
This paper has an attempt to demonstrate the influence of childhood mortality on fertility behaviour of women in Goa.


METHODS
The replacement effect of child mortality has been examined by comparing fertility behaviour of those who have and who have not experienced a child loss. The insurance effect has been studied through fertility differentials of those who perceived that the level of mortality has decreased in the region with the women who left it to be the otherwise.


RESULTS
It shows that the net effect of child mortality could be substantial. Women with personal experience of child loss and having pessimistic opinion about the level of mortality, produced, on an average, about two children more than similar women who never experienced a child loss and were optimistic about the level. The tendency to replace a dead child was found to cut across the level of literacy and religious background of women.


CONCLUSIONS
The insurance effect on the other hand, was predominant among illiterate women.
Syamala
T S
TS
Indian Institute of Health and Family Welfare, Hyderabad. tssyamala@rediffmail.com
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001723:Birth Rate; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003268:Contraception Behavior; D005193:Family Planning Services; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D007223:Infant; D007226:Infant Mortality; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012737:Sex Factors