Establecer marcos legales que no se apliquen en su totalidad

does the inverse relation between caste hierarchy and fertility exist: 5.9 children among scheduled castes. 5.7 am ong backward castes and 5.1 am ong non-backward castes. In tow ns and rural areas scheduled castes and backw ard castes had a smaller mean number of children ever born th an non-backw ard castes. .However there are indications t h a t the d a ta from scheduled and backward castes could be qualitatively worse th an those from non-backw ard castes (p.241). This might partly be the reason for the low fertility of scheduled castes in rural areas.

D a ta from a sample survey conducted in the middle fifties among 2380 couples in certain rural areas of the s ta te of U t t a r Pradesh have been analysed in greater detail concerning the caste differentials Rele 63 . The three Hindu caste groups ordered hierarchically exhibited an inverse relation with mean children ever born to women of 15 or more years of m arital d u ratio n . W omen of social class 3 which included lower Hindu castes and scheduled castes, who were m arried for 25-29 years had 7.07 children ever born com pared to 6.15 am ong social class 1. Corresponding figures for those m arried for 30 or more years were 6.93 and 5.74. Even when the analysis wras restricted to couples with both the husband and wife living, the differentials persisted. However an analysis of mean num ber of living children did not reveal clear differentials. It is obvious t h a t the pro p ortion of children surviving varied positively with social class s ta tu s which was borne out by the results presented. F u r th e r analysis by education of woman, occupation of h usband and of wife in broad m arital du ration groups confirmed the above differentials by- caste groups, but only broadly as the castes were now grouped into two categories rather th an th re e .' It is also n o tew o rth y th a t Muslim women in the sample had higher fertility than the lowest Hindu caste group. Similar Hindu caste differentials were reported by Sinha for u rban com m unities of U tta r Pradesh. The high caste Hindus had a lower completed fertility th a n the low^er caste Hindus who were com parable in fertility to Muslims Sinha 57j. Saxena also reported similar findings for rural U tta r Pradesh. In a sample survey of 1413 couples, the highest caste women of ages 45 and above averaged <.6

55 live births in comparison to 8.2 among the women of i ntermediate category and 8.8 a mo ng the lowest caste category Saxena 65 .

Driver conducted a study of fertility differentials in the district of Nagpur during the late fifties in a sample of a bout 2600 households. The weighted mean children ever born was 6.0 among scheduled castes other t han Mahar s compared to 4.1 among Brahmi ns. Among other inter mediat e castes this mean varied between 4.3 and 4.8. However. Mahars. who are also scheduled castes, averaged only 4.4 children Driver 63..

A study was conducted during 1970-71 in a sample of 467 women belonging to two rural caste groups of G u ja ra t state. The castes studied were P a t i a d a rs and Barias, the former being the higher caste. A mul ti va ri at e analysis of the mean children ever born suggested that caste had no additional independent effect once the socioeconomic variables were controlled. But the results are of questionable value for the following two reasons: the mean children ever born per woman was practically the same in both castes being 3.7 and 3.8. and the s ta n d a r d deviations similarly were 1.7 and 1.5; and the decision on the ranking of castes appear s to have been made on the basis of the existing socio­ economic differences rat her t han on any external criteria Anker and Anker 82!.

Goyal 's study of fertility differentials in Ur ban Delhi conducted during 1969-70 presents fertility indices by caste groups, t hough this was not discussed in the text . Scheduled castes had the highest fertility with a total fertility r ate of 8.27 followed by functional castes with 6.29 and Brahmins with 5.61) Goyal 74;. Two other recent studies, both conducted in the s ta t e of K ar n a t a k a , report fertility indices by caste groups with very little elaboration in the text. The Bangalore population study which was conducted in a bout 5000 households during 1975, reports an inverse relation of mean children ever born per ever married wo ma n with caste hierarchy in Bangalore city, while in rural areas and towns scheduled castes experienced fertility either the same as ot her castes, or even lower. iSrinivasan et al. 781. The World Bank stu d y in K a r n a t a k a involving 3000 women and conducted during 1979-80, reports t h a t women of scheduled castes and tribes had lower fertility t han other castes (based on total marital fertility rate and age-standardized mean children ever born per ever married woman) both in 1960-69 and 75-79. Even Br ahmi ns had slightly higher fertility t h an scheduled castes Rao et al. 86 . A sample

56

survey of 5000 households in the stat e of Orissa conducted in 1982 reports higher birth rates for scheduled castes both in urban and rural areas of the state Srinivasan et al. 85,.

Cast e as a variable in fertility has clearly not been receiving sufficient attention. Most studies merely provide, as if in passing, some estimates of fertility by caste, and leave it there. Yet. however vague, the picture t h at emerges from this review is one of an inverse relation with caste hierarchy. It also appears t ha t scheduled castes in many cases have higher fertility. A few studies t h at examine the fertility of Hindus and Muslims seem to suggest t h at the fertility of scheduled castes is close to the usually high Muslim fertility.

3 .3 L e v e ls o f f e r t il it y 3 .3 .1 C h il d r e n E v e r B o r n

Th e mean number of children ever born (CEB) by five-year age-groups of currently married women is presented separately in Table 3.1 (and Figure 3.1). for the four cultural groups. As a result of the decision to interview only c u r r en t h married women, these figures do not include other ever-married women who were divorced or widowed at the time of the survey. They also, of course, do not include women belonging to various age cohorts who died before reaching a particular age and it is implicitly assumed t h at the mari tal fertility performance of these excluded women is no different from t h at of the currently married women.^ The table also presents mean number of children ever born per ever married woman, standar dized for age alone and another s ta nda rdiz ed for both age and mar ital durat ion. The latter s ta ndar dizati on becomes necessary as the cultural groups vary in their mean age at first marriage as is shown in C h a p t e r 5. The s ta n da r di za ti o n was carried out for age and mar ital duration by calculating person-years of mar ita l du r at io n and total nu mb er of children ever born (hereafter also referred to as CEB) for each five year age group in the ages 15-44. The mean n umber of children ever born per person-year of married life for each age group was esti mat ed by dividing the

®The number of such women is also likely to be small compared to the number of currently married women though this proportion would increase with age, especially if female remarriage is rare. In comparisons of the cultural groups and other subgroups, it is assumed that such proportions of women would not be large and would not vary much among them.

57

total n um be r of children ever born by total number of person-years of married life in each age group. The person-years of married life in each five year age group for all the four cultural groups combined was used as the s tandar d. By multiplying this standard by the mean C E B per person-year of married life in the population in question and summing over the age groups, the mean C E B standardized for both age and marital duration was obt ai ned. ^ For the age sta nd ar di za ti on , number of women in Five year age groups for all the four cultural groups combined was used as a sta nd a rd .

Th e mean parity in ages 40-44 closely approxi mat es to the completed fertility of married women. This measure clearly distinguishes the cultural groups. Muslims having the highest mean C E B of 6.3 followed by Scheduled Castes with 5.7. Ot her Hindus with 5.1 and Yellalas with the lowest mean of 4.2. The difference between the highest and lowest fertility groups was a b ou t two children. In fact Yellalas end up having at least a bo ut one child fewer t h an any other group. The difference between cultural groups is of almost the same m ag n it ud e even in ages 35-39. The two low fertility groups, Yellala and Ot he r Hindus, exhibit lower mean CE B in all age groups above 20 compared to the other two groups (See Figure 3.1), Yellalas more so t han Ot he r Hindus. Among the high fertility groups. Scheduled Castes have higher mean parity t han Muslim women in ages below 30 after which Muslim women not only catch up with t hem but go on to have more children t han Scheduled Castes. The Muslims gain about 2.7 children ever born in the 15 years between ages 27.5 and 42.5 compared to 1.7 among Scheduled Castes, 1.9 among Ot he r Hindus and only 1.4 among Yellalas.

Uns ta ndar di ze d and standardized mean C E B per currently married woman conFirm the above cultural group differences, though not with the same strength. Unstandardized and age-st andardized means appear slightly to exaggerate the differences. Age- s ta nd ar di ze d means do not vary much from the unstandardized means. But the means sta nd ar di ze d for age and mar ital durat ion preserve the differentials but at a reduced level.

Higher levels of child mort ali ty, especiaiiv infant mort ali ty, could operate in two ways to increase the n umb er of births a woman would have:

^The a lte rn a tiv e m ethod of calculating mean p a rity for age-m arital d u ra tio n groups and then sta n d a rd iz in g was considered but rejected as this would result in a larger n u m b e r of cells and thus less stable m ean parities.

58 1. Infant mort ali ty may curtail the length of breast feeding thus enabling the

woma n to be fecund again earlier t h an she would be in case of child survival.

2. Th e de ath of a child may provide the moti vat ion to replace the dead child as soon as possible.

As t he levels of infant mort ali ty differ among the four study groups, it is essential to examine the mean number of living children b\ age as well. These d a t a are provided in Table 3.2 and Figure 3.2. The basic differentials between the four groups continue to persist as in the case of children ever born. After age 20. mean nu mber of living children is highest a mo ng Muslims followed by Scheduled Castes. Other Hindus and Vellalas. The e xtent of such differences is smaller t han t h at in children ever born. The difference in living children between the highest and lowest fertility groups in the ages 40-44. for example, is only 1.3 compared to 2 children ever born. There is also one exception. At the ages 40-44. Scheduled Cast e women have only 3.5 mean living children compared to 3.7 a mo ng Ot he r Hindus t hough the Scheduled Caste women had 0.6 children more t han Ot he r Hindus. This is essentially due to the high incidence of infant and child mort ali ty among Scheduled Castes as reporting errors in living children are likely to be less t h an in r eporting children ever born. By the time the Scheduled Caste women are of ages 40-44, they have lost about 4 out of every 10 children compared to fewer t h an 3 among the other three groups. The proportion of children surviving (Table 3.2) is low-est among Scheduled Castes in any age group. The highest survival chances occur among Vellalas with the lowest fertility and among Muslims with the highest fertility. This would suggest t h a t child m or ta li ty is not a straight-forw'ard explanatory factor in children-ever-born differentials. Using number of living children as a measure of fertility certainly reduces the differentials between groups. However, the cultural group differentials persist even when n u m be r of living children is used as the fertility measure. In fact, even the p a t t e r n of Scheduled Cast e women having higher fertility t han Muslim women until age 30 and this being reversed after age 30. is replicated in living children j u s t as in the case of children ever born.

^ E v e n child (as distinct from infant) mortality could facilitate earlier pregnancy by curtailing breast feeding in communities with longer breast feeding habits, though the effect of such curtailment would be limited.

59 3 . 3 . 2 C u r r e n t F e r t i l i t y

Age-specific m arita l fertility rates by c u ltural groups are presented in Table 3.3 and Figure 3.3. The rates are based on events t h a t occurred during 1971-73 over which period the stud y women were co n tacted every six weeks. This, as noted earlier, should effectively elim inate tim e reference errors. It is also less likely t h a t live births are not registered by the survey. Even when women went outside the village for delivery, they could be c o n ta c te d during later visits.

T he T M F R s of all the four groups are surprisingly close to their mean n um ber of children ever born at ages 40-44. This would suggest th a t fertility in these groups had not changed much over the recent p a s t . 11 T he Muslims have a T M F R of 6.4 followed bv Scheduled C astes with 5.6, O ther Hindus 5.4 and Vellalas 4.5.

Age p a tte rn s of fertility are very similar in the four g roups(Table 3.4). S ta rtin g at a very high level a t ages 15-19, rates increase in ages 20-24, decline in ages 25-29 to below' the levels in ages 15-19 and then continue to decline, more so in some groups than others. In alm o st all ages above 20. Muslims have the highest and Vellalas the lowest rates with the o th e r two groups falling in betw'een. The one im p o r ta n t p a tte rn to be noted is t h a t the higher T M F R of Scheduled C aste women th an O ther Hindus is essentially due to their high fertility at ages below 30. At ages above 30. Scheduled Castes consistently have lower rate s th an O th e r Hindus though both have lower rates th a n Muslims and higher rates t h a n Vellalas.

T h e highest c o n trib u tio n to the T M F R comes from women of ages 20-24 being a b o u t 26 to 34 percent, this percentage varying inversely with the fertility level of the c u ltural groups. This is followed by ages 15-19 where also the inverse relation persists. By age 25, Vellala women have already achieved 65 percent of their m arital fertility and O th er Hindus and Scheduled Castes a b o u t 55 percent, while Muslim women have not quite com pleted half. In fact the Muslim women bear almost one child after age 35 while other c u ltu ral groups bear barely half a child.

11If fam ily lim ita tio n had increased in the recent past, this could have depressed the fertility of older w o m e n but m igh t have been com p en sated by increase in fertility am ong younger w om e n . Increase in fertility during the early stages of ’m o d e r n iz a t io n ’ have been noted .Nag 79i but the age specific pattern o f such ch anges has not been in vestigated , though alternate scenarios have been suggested S rin ivasan and Jejeebhov 81 .

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3 . 3 . 3 S p e e d o f R e p r o d u c t i o n

The time to the next conception, especially when this can be esti mat ed for women of various parities, is a useful measure of the ' tempo ' of fertility. In the current analysis, the c umul ati ve proportion of women conceiving at different periods since the termination of the last live birth pregnancy is examined in order to unders tand the speed at which the women of these four groups proceed to build their families. This is done for four parity groups namely, 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6 and 7 and above. Only women who had at least one live birth during the prospective phase of the survey are included for analysis. The