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DISTINGUISHING THE IMPACT OF POSTPONEMENT, SPACING AND STOPPING ON BIRTH INTERVALS: EVIDENCE FROM A MODEL WITH HETEROGENEOUS FECUNDITY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2012

IAN M. TIMÆUS  and
TOM A. MOULTRIE
IAN M. TIMÆUS
Affiliation:
Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK
TOM A. MOULTRIE
Affiliation:
Centre for Actuarial Research, University of Cape Town, South Africa
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Summary

This paper investigates the impact on birth intervals of three distinct birth control strategies: stopping childbearing, spacing births and the postponement of further childbearing for reasons unrelated to women's family-building histories. A macro-simulation model of the family-building process is described that incorporates heterogeneity in fecundability. This model is used to demonstrate that the postponement of further childbearing has a distinctive impact on schedules of duration-specific fertility rates that differs from that of both family-size limitation and birth spacing. In particular, the simulation results, supplemented by an analytical exposition, show that reductions in fertility due to spacing are a function of interval duration and its log, while reductions due to postponement are a function of interval duration and its square. This provides a way to test statistically for the presence of, and distinguish between, differential postponement and spacing in regression analyses of birth history data.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , May 2013 , pp. 311 - 330
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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