HOUSEHOLD FERTILITY BEHAVIOUR AND CHILDREN'S SCHOOUNG AMONGST TRIBALS OF WEST TRIPURA : AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

The dominant fertility research agenda stresses the socio-economic perspective - the effects of socio-economic structural factors on fertility and fertility decline. Alarge number of studies, based upon correlation and regression analyses, on fertility and on children's educational attainments have been carried out, on a wide variety of the cross-sectional data, from both economic and sociological points of view. An important implication of these theories is the emergence of a hypothesized negative quantity - quality trade-off which maintains that quantity and quality of children would interact because parents desire approximately equal levels of quality for each of their children. However, despite a variety of theoretical and empirical formulations on the subject, household fertility and children's schooling remain perplexing issues. In fact, contradictory findings and evidences are not uncommon in these areas, given the societal heterogeneity. It is, therefore imperative that micro-demographic studies on the diverse socio-economic-cultural groups are undertaken in order to further enrich knowledge in the area. It is with this view that the present study was undertaken with the objectives as stated below: 1. To study and identify the socio-economic factors which influence the household fertility behaviour. 2. To study and identify the socio-economic factors which influence the household demand for children's education. ii 3. To find out interrelationship, if any, between fertility and children's education. Two models have been specified for addressing to the objectives of the study. In Model-1, two multiple regression equations have been constructed to estimate the household demand for fertility and to estimate household demand for children's education as well, with desired family size (DFS) and average expected education of a child in a household (ASC) as dependent variables respectively. The Model-2 also consists of two multiple regression equations with dependent variables CEB (Number of children ever born in a household) and ACEC (average years of schooling per child). The choice of explanatory variables for both the models was guided by a comprehensive review of existing literature on these issues and also by the local characteristics of the surveyed regions. The aim of formulating Model-2 was, however, restricted to find out if regression results demonstrated any kind of similarity/ dissimilarity with the regression results of Model-l,vas both the models essentially address to the same issue. The study is based upon the data collected by administering a pre-tested structured questionnaire to randomly selected 254 rural households, in purposively selected West Tripura District of the State of Tripura. Simple tabular analysis technique with mean and standard deviation of selected variables as well as regression analysis have been used for the data analyses purposes. Model-1 and Model-2 were estimated first by simple OLS method and later by 2SLS in order to remove simultaneity bias from both the over identified sets of equations. The interpretation of the results and final conclusions were, however, drawn on the basis of 2SLS results of Model-1. iii The results of Model-1 appeared to be strongly supporting the quantity-quality trade-off hypothesis. The variables, representing short run benefits of children (ESDW), gender preference (PS), mother's age (MAGE) and employment of parents in government sector (FMEGS), too were found to have positive and significant impact on DFS. It was also observed that the labour force participation of women (WWAM), incidence of child death in the household (CD), the use of contraceptive methods by the married couple (CMU), and father's outside contracts (FMO) have significant and negative association with DFS. In regard of the demand for children's education, household's gross earnings (HGE) and level of assets (LA) were found statistically significant with a positive impact on ASC, contrary to the statistical insignificance of these variables with respect to DFS. Another proximate variable of the familial resources i.e., size of land owned by household (SL), had an expected negative and significant impact on ASC. The children's schooling was also found to be significantly constrained by labour force participation of the married women (WWAM). Among the variables which represented the nature of occupation of a given household, FMEGS and OAGRI (Agriculture as main occupation) were found to have a positive and significant effect on ASC. The results also indicated that ASC was higher for the households where parents had no specific gender preferences (ESCCE) in regard of children's schooling. The estimated regression equations of Model-2, however, did not reveal a strong support for the quantity-quality trade off unlike the Model-1. The overall 2SLS results, in terms of number of significant variables, the iv level of explained variation and F-value appear to be quite satisfactory and reliable. The confirmation of the Quantity-Quality hypothesis provided guidelines for the government policy. An improvement in the educational infrastructure in the state of Tripura would obviously reduce household demand for children. The results of the current study indicated towards the presence of strong gender preference in the society. The government may also start initiating suitable social security measures aimed at the aged and helpless people which may bring a gradual transformation in the present attitude of preferring son to daughter. Promotion of employment opportunities for women in better paid jobs may further reduce their demand for children and may also contribute towards raising the quality of their children. Since familial resources and the better economic status of the parents have been found to be, by and large, positively associated with household demand for children's schooling, programs aimed at helping the households to enjoy a greater level of economic certainties would obviously improve the schooling prospects of children.