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The interval between marriage and the first birth in India, particularly in rural areas, is much longer than what is observed in western countries. In eastern Uttar Pradesh, the mean interval is observed to be even longer, possibly due to traditional customs such as the female partner's visits to her parents in the early years of marriage and the smaller chance of coition because of the observance of rigid intercourse taboos. Thus the models to explain the length of the interval of marriage to first birth proposed by Western demographers, which assume that the period of cohabitation between marriage and first birth is uninterrupted, often do not describe the data satisfactorily when applied to rural India. In this paper a model to describe data on first birth interval is proposed that takes account of the distributions of timing and periods of physical separation and variation in fecundity with effective marriage duration.

Breastfeeding beyond the resumption of mother's menstruation plays a significant role in the proximate determinants of fertility. Breastfeeding and postpartum amenorrhoea data collected from retrospective surveys usually exhibit digit preferences. Here, these heaping errors were smoothed by B-spline and used in multivariate models of risk of conception to investigate the contraceptive effect of breastfeeding. The data used come from a 1987 Indian survey. Results show that lactation, after mother's menses resume, reduces the risk of conception. Heaping in breastfeeding data attenuates this relationship. When adjustment is made, breastfeeding reduced the rate of conception by 47 per cent; the reduction, with adjusted data, was 63 per cent.

There are few studies of the interrelationships among breastfeeding, child spacing, and child mortality in traditional societies that incorporate extensive controls for social and demographic characteristics of the mother and child. In this paper, we investigate the impact of breastfeeding and the length of the preceding birth interval on early child mortality (defined as a death in the first two years of life) using data from a traditional society of India. Multivariate hazards models are used to analyze the data. Most prior analyses related the impact of breastfeeding duration to the duration of child survivability by taking breastfeeding as a fixed covariate. The present study has a methodological focus in the sense that breastfeeding information from retrospective survey data is treated as a time-dependent covariate both as a status variate as well as a duration--with empirical findings compared across the two specifications. The effects of postpartum amenorrhoea and various other demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of mother and child are also studied. The results suggest that breastfeeding duration has a strong impact in reducing the relative risk of early child mortality; but it does not explain the effect of the length of the preceding birth interval on early child mortality.

The length of the first birth interval is one of the strongest and most persistent factors affecting fertility in noncontracepting populations, with longer intervals usually associated with lower fertility. Compared to Western society, the average length of the first birth interval is much longer in traditional Indian society. Yet Indian fertility rates are higher because of either ineffective family planning procedures or deliberate nonuse of birth control and because of the high proportion of the population that is married. Here, we examine the effects of various sociodemographic covariates (with an emphasis on the role of age at marriage) on the length of the first birth interval for two states of India: Assam and Uttar Pradesh. Life table and multivariate hazards modeling techniques are applied to the data. Covariates such as age at marriage, present age of mother, female's occupation, family income, and place of residence have strong effects on the variation of the length of the first birth interval. For each subgroup of females (classified according to different levels of the covariates), the median length of the first birth interval for the Assam (Bengali-speaking) sample is shorter than that of the Uttar Pradesh (Hindi-speaking) sample.

Life tables of birth intervals and median birth intervals in two Indian states, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala, were computed for several subgroups of the study population. Multivariate hazards modelling technique was used to examine the net effect of each of the variables studied. The results show a substantial effect of socioeconomic variables in child-spacing after controlling for the major intermediate variables.

The study investigates the relationship between age at marriage and the length of first birth interval in two states of India: Uttar Pradesh and Kerala. Life tables of first-birth intervals and median first-birth intervals are computed for several subgroups of the study population. Multivariate hazards modelling technique is used to study the net effect of age at marriage, controlling for a multiple of socioeconomic factors. The result shows that the average first-birth interval varies by age at marriage and is much longer in Uttar Pradesh than in Kerala.

"A probability distribution for describing the variation in the length of open birth interval regardless of parity has been derived assuming that fecundability varies from female to female and the births are of two types, one which results [in] infant death and the other [which does] not. To get the estimates of the parameters, expressions for the first two moments have been derived. The model has been applied to the data taken from the survey 'Rural Development and Population Growth--A Sample Survey 1978,' conducted under the auspices of the Demographic Research Centre, Banaras Hindu University [India].", (excerpt)

"A model for the time of first birth is presented under certain assumptions, which involve biological and socio-cultural factors." The model is illustrated using data from Rural Development and Population Growth--A Sample Survey, 1978, conducted in Varanasi, India, and involving some 3,514 households., (excerpt)

"This paper presents some modifications [of] the usual life table technique to analyse the data on the time of first birth and inter live birth intervals which are compiled from the birth histories of females, of varying marital durations, enumerated in a retrospective survey." The fact that a female may not be exposed to the risk of conception following childbirth or marriage, because of postpartum amenorrhea or of customs involving visits to parents, is taken into account. A method to obtain maximum likelihood estimates of the conditional risk of conception is given, and an analysis of birth intervals is presented using this technique and data for India from the Rural Development and Population Growth--A Sample Survey 1978., (excerpt)

The article discusses the study that determines the birth interval of women in northern and southern India. Discussion on the use of the parity progression ratios (PPR) method which explains the fertility differentials among women and evaluates family planning programs in the country is provided. Overview of the findings of the study which indicate the large gap between the northern and southern women with respect to reproductive preferences and family building behavior is offered.