FERTILITY DIFFERENTIAL IN RURAL AREAS OF PAURI GARHWAL: A REGRESSION APPROACH

Fertility is one of the important demographic indicators in Pauri Garhwal which are responsible for unusual changes in population distributions. A major part of this paper attempts to study fertility differentials in different sub-groups in the population by taking into consideration the various socio-economic variables such as literacy, religion, the proportion of scheduled caste and age at marriage. In order to examine the differentials in fertility for rural areas of study area, a regression model approach is used to measure the extent of the interaction of different type of effects of various socio-economic and demographic variables. The relationship between the fertility levels and socio-economic variables shows that female literacy and the number of females attending school were negatively related to fertility in the rural areas of the study area, whereas the other socio-economic variables showed a positive relationship. It has been concluded that rapid industrialisation and various economic development plans are likely to bring about a suitable change in the attribute of the people. This may be achieved by providing better and higher educational facilities and occupational alternatives to the girls.