Age, education and caste difference between couples and their impact on fertility and fertility Intention

In this paper an attempt has been made to explore the impact of age, education and caste difference between spouse on the fertility and fertility intention. The dataset of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-III, 2005-2006) has been used for the present study. As a measure of fertility we have used children ever born and for the fertility intention we have used ideal family size and desire for additional child. Both bi-variate and multivariate techniques have been used for the analysis. This study reveals that age difference has negative effect on children ever born whereas education difference has a positive effect on children ever born. As compared to the couple who marry in same caste, children ever born are high in the couple with inter-caste marriage. Odds of having ideal family size upto 2 are increases with the age difference. Likelihood of reporting ideal family size upto 2 is 14 percent high in the couple where wife is from lower caste and 23 percent high in the couple where wife is from higher caste as compared to the couple where both are from same caste. Odds of desiring additional child are decreases with the increase in age difference. Educational difference between couple has positive effect on desire for additional child.