Urban-rural differences in Indian fertility

It is a commonplace that urban fertility is lower than rural fertility in the West, and it is frequently assumed that this holds for non-Western populations as well. In the case of India, previous studies of rural-urban fertility ratios have appeared to bear out this expectation. However, fertility ratios based on the most recent available age distributions show no significant rural-urban fertility differentials. This conclusion is supported by several recent sample surveys of children ever born and is consistent with the generally accepted fact that contraception is negligible even in the cities of India. The apparent differentials inherent in the earlier age data are most likely spurious and stem from a well-known bias of the fertility ratio itself. Where urban infant and child mortality are higher than rural infant and child mortality, urban fertility ratios will be lower than rural ratios. The virtual disappearance of the Indian rural-urban fertility ratio differential over time has in all likelihood resulted from a narrowing ofthe rural-urban infant and child mortality differential. There is also the possibility that the great increase in rural-urban migration occurring in the last decades has contributed to the narrowing of the fertility differentials. In any event, it is clear that average age at first marriage for urban females is somewhat lower than for rural females and this explains such real fertility differentials as do exist.