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The registration of births and deaths in India, even at present, is too inadequate to be of much help in estimating fertility and mortality conditions in the country. From time to time, Indian census actuaries have constructed life tables indirectly by comparing one census age distribution with the preceding one. Because of inaccurate age reporting in Indian censuses, it was essential for those who constructed life tables to smooth the age distributions. The results obtained depended to a large extent on the method chosen for smoothing. This paper is an attempt to estimate some demographic measures for the nine census years between 1881 and 1961 by applying uniform computational methods to the data of all years. The measures, by sex, include an abridged life table, the growth rate, birth rate and death rate and as a by-product of, rather than a prerequisite for, obtaining other measures, the smoothed age distribution. The basic assumption underlying this paper is that, for all practical purposes, the Indian population can be considered as stable or quasi-stable for a period of 100 years in the immediate past.

The residence background of wives who migrate to metropolitan areas plays an important role in determining their fertility. From the data collected during 1966, relating to 7,872 currently married women of Greater Bombay, India, an attempt was made to establish differentials in marital fertility by residence background of the wives. This was categorized into three groups, non-migrants, urban migrants and rural migrants. It was observed that rural migrant wives exhibited significantly higher fertility compared with the other two groups, and this was explained by their lower educational attainment. Between the non-migrant and the urban migrant wives the latter consistently showed lower fertility for all age groups up to 40, while there was a reversal in the age group 40 and above, where non-migrants exhibited lower fertility. The urban migrant wives showed a somewhat higher level of education, most likely on account of selectivity, compared to the non-migrants. According to the author, wife's education explains to a large extent the observed fertility differentials by residence background.

The study of fertility in any given society involves the study of the family and its institutional characteristics. Reproduction is one of the primary functions of the family, and it is through this that the society maintains itself against the hazards of mortality. This article examines fertility in relation to the age at return marriage using the data from a study in a rural area in India. The author discusses how the interval from return marriage to first birth is usually long among Indian women and explores the factors that contribute to the low incidence of childlessness in the country.

The study relates to an investigation of the fertility pattern of a sample of 1018 tires drawn from Lucknow and Kanpur, the two biggest cities of Uttar Pradesh. The sample is stratified with respect to religion and caste, and income. It reveals significant inter-community differences, Muslims and low-caste Hindus showing nearly equal fertility, arid high-caste Hindus tad Christians showing comparatively lower levels. The proportion of small families (three children or less) is obviously higher in groups with lower fertility, but there is a wide measure of dispersion in each group. Fertility is seen to decline with a rise in income, but not until we cross the income level of Rs 300 per month. Consistent with the differential trends in fertility, striking variations are also observed in the extent of contraceptive practice in different groups. Groups with lower fertility also show a higher frequency of birth control. Birth controllers have lower fertility than the non-controllers, tad birth control appears to play a not inconsequential tóle in causing differential trends in fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]