title: Trends in Average Living Children at the Time of Terminal Contraception: A Time Series Analysis Over 27 Years Using ARIMA (p, d, q) Nonseasonal Model.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  India's National Family Welfare Programme is dominated by sterilization, particularly tubectomy. Sterilization, being a terminal method of contraception, decides the final number of children for that couple. Many studies have shown the declining trend in the average number of living children at the time of sterilization over a short period of time. So this study was planned to do time series analysis of the average children at the time of terminal contraception, to do forecasting till 2020 for the same and to compare the rates of change in various subgroups of the population.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data was preprocessed in MS Access 2007 by creating and running SQL queries. After testing stationarity of every series with augmented Dickey-Fuller test, time series analysis and forecasting was done using best-fit Box-Jenkins ARIMA (p, d, q) nonseasonal model. To compare the rates of change of average children in various subgroups, at sterilization, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was applied.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Forecasting showed that the replacement level of 2.1 total fertility rate (TFR) will be achieved in 2018 for couples opting for sterilization. The same will be achieved in 2020, 2016, 2018, and 2019 for rural area, urban area, Hindu couples, and Buddhist couples, respectively. It will not be achieved till 2020 in Muslim couples.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Every stratum of population showed the declining trend. The decline for male children and in rural area was significantly faster than the decline for female children and in urban area, respectively. The decline was not significantly different in Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist couples.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, Ashwini Rural Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Solapur, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: Sachin S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Mumbare
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, Dr. Vasantrao Pawar Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Nashik, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: Shriram
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gosavi
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, Dr. Vasantrao Pawar Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Nashik, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: Balaji
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Almale
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics, Dr. Vasantrao Pawar Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Nashik, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: Aruna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Patil
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, Dr. Vasantrao Pawar Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Nashik, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: Supriya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dhakane
authors.affiliation: Consultant, Quality Assurance, National Rural Health Mission, Arogya Bhavan, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: Aniruddha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kadu
keywords: Demography; family size at sterilization; sterilization; time series