[On fertility of female population of large-scale industrial agglomeration of cities of the Irkutsk Oblast]

The article considers the most important demographic indicator of natural movement of population - the natality. The dynamics of age-specific fertility of female population residing industrial highly urbanized areas of the region is demonstrated. The increase of total fertility was established. The dynamics of common and standardized coefficients of age-specific fertility of female population revealed process of aging (motherhood). However, the cleared, accurate net-coefficient of population reproduction indicates that positive dynamics of general, age-specific fertility ensures only simple character of population reproduction in city of Angarsk. The population of cities of Irkutsk and Shelekhov remains in narrowed character of population reproduction. The special coefficients of fertility make it possible to obtain accurate age-specific qualitative characteristic of fertility of female population and to forecast demographic situation in the region.

Adapting the Own Children Method to allow comparison of fertility between populations with different marriage regimes

The Own Children Method (OCM) is an indirect procedure for deriving age-specific fertility rates and total fertility from children living with their mothers at a census or survey. The method was designed primarily for the calculation of overall fertility, although there are variants that allow the calculation of marital fertility. In this paper we argue that the standard variants for calculating marital fertility can produce misleading results and require strong assumptions, particularly when applied to social or spatial subgroups. We present two new variants of the method for calculating marital fertility: the first of these allows for the presence of non-marital fertility and the second also permits the more robust calculation of rates for social subgroups of the population. We illustrate and test these using full-count census data for England and Wales in 1911.

The changing relationship between unemployment and total fertility

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether there has been a fundamental change in the relationship between economic conditions and fertility. We use panel data methods to study the short-term changes in total fertility and the unemployment rate in a range of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries from 1957 to 2014. We find that although fertility was counter-cyclical before 1970, with good economic times being associated with lower fertility, since then it has become pro-cyclical, with good economic times being associated with higher fertility.

Trends in contraceptive use and distribution of births with demographic risk factors in Ethiopia: a sub-national analysis

BACKGROUND

Evidence shows that family planning contributes to the decline in child mortality by decreasing the proportions of births that are considered high risk. The main objective of the present analysis was to examine the trends in use of modern contraceptives and their relationship with total fertility rate (TFR) and distribution of births by demographic risk factors as defined by mother's age, birth interval, and birth order at the sub-national level in Ethiopia.

DESIGN

Analyses used data from three Demographic and Health Surveys in Ethiopia (2000, 2005, and 2011), which are nationally representative data collected through questionnaire-based interviews from women 15-49 using a stratified, two-stage cluster sampling. First, we examined the trends of and relationship between TFR (in the 3 years before each survey) and modern contraceptive use among currently married women in all administrative regions over the time period 2000-2011 using linear regression analysis. We also examined the relationship between birth risks and under-five mortality using the no-risk group as a reference. Finally, multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to estimate the relationship between the effect of being a resident in one of the regions and having an avoidable birth risk (which includes births to mothers younger than 18 and older than 34 years, birth interval of less than 24 months and birth order higher than third) after adjusting for select covariates including wealth, educational status, residence, religion and exposure to family planning information.

RESULTS

Sub-national-level regression analysis showed an inverse relationship between modern contraceptive use among married women and the TFR, with an average decrease of TFR by one child per woman associated with a 13 percentage point increase in modern contraceptive use between 2000 and 2011. A high percentage of births in Ethiopia (62%) fall in one of the risk categories (excluding first births), with wide regional variation from 55% in Gambela to 72% in the Somali region. The multivariate analysis showed women living in the Somali, Afar and Benishangul-Gumuz regions had significantly higher odds of having avoidable birth risk compared to those in Addis Ababa after controlling for observed covariates. The trend analysis showed there was a significant drop in the proportion of births from women above 34 years between 2000 and 2011. There was no significant decline in births to women less than 18 years between 2000 and 2011.

CONCLUSIONS

A majority of births in Ethiopia fall in one of the risk categories, with substantial region-to-region variation in the percentage of births with avoidable risk factors, Somali and Afar having the highest burden. The analysis indicated that births in the three regions had significantly higher odds of having one of the avoidable risk factors compared to Addis Ababa, and we suggest family planning programmes need to identify differentials of modern contraceptive use at the sub-national level in order to better address coverage and equity issues.