| Spend the least amount of time analyzing
and comparing Crude Birth Rates. They are not our best measure of
fertility, although their level does tend to reflect real changes in
fertility, and they are a good measure of the extent to which numbers are
being added to the population by births. |
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| Spend more time analyzing the Age Specific
Fertility Rate Charts. These rates are especially useful in determining
both the level and the
timing of fertility in each
population. Look at the ASFRs for each population at each age group. Which
population has the higher ASFR? How much higher is it in one
population than
the other? Is the ASFR for 15-19 year olds 4 or 5 times as high in
one than the other? Now examine the timing of child bearing.
Do women start childbearing at a young age or wait until they are older?
The easiest way to examine timing is to analyze the "% of all fertility"
figures and relate how much greater that percentage is for a less developed
population's 15-19 year-olds than
for your more developed population's 15-19 year olds. For which age group is
the % highest in each of your populations? In which population do older women
contribute a higher % of total fertility? |
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| Take a look at the Age Specific Fertility
Rate Chart for 1995-2000 and compare the levels to those in the 2000-2005
chart. Is fertility declining? Is it declining across all age groups?
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| Spend the most time analyzing trends in
the Total Fertility Rate. The TFR is derived from age specific
fertility rates and is the best single measure of
fertility. The age specific rates are divided by 1000 and then
applied to a hypothetical woman for each of her reproductive years from
age 15 to age 49. The result is an easy to understand "children per woman"
measure. A TFR of 3.1 means that the age specific
fertility rates in effect in a particular year imply that a woman
experiencing them through out her reproductive years would have 3.1 children. Examining its level over time
is the easiest way of determining fertility change in a population. It
is also our best single comparative measure of fertility. You can
directly compare the TFRs of your two populations to determine how much
higher fertility is in one population than the other. If the TFR of one
population is 2 and that of another population is 4, then the fertility of the
second population is really twice as high as the first. Check the
level of each population's Total Fertility Rate to see if it is below
"replacement level" -- that is if each woman is having less than the 2.1 children
needed to "replace" herself and her partner. |
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Examine the Annual % Change in TFR chart See if there is
a clear pattern of change, especially over the last ten to fifteen years.
You will need this analysis when it comes times for you to project future
changes in the Total Fertility Rate |
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| The Net Reproduction Rate chart offers an
even more sophisticated measure of "replacement." See how many daughters
will survive long enough to have children themselves. A Net Reproduction
Rate of "1" means that each woman is just replacing herself -having
exactly one daughter who will survive through her own reproductive years.
If fertility is below replacement -- measured either with the TFR of the
NRR -- this chart will reveal how long this has been going on. |
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