Age, education and caste differences among the couples and its impact on their fertility in India

So far the research in reproductive health and demographic behaviour is focused to individual level variables taking the wife or husband alone. However, ICPD conference in Cairo in 1994 has put forth demand to consider both men and women in its way to improve the health of women and children. Keeping this in view, there is ample research being carried out to study the effects of couple characteristics on health of the women and children. In India, the researches on understanding the relationship between couple characteristics and reproductive behaviour are scarce. The major objective of this paper is study the gap in couple characteristics and its impact on the fertility(children ever born).The present paper discusses three important couple characteristics namely age, education and caste differentials among the couples in India and their effects on fertility by using data from a large scale and national representative National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3, 2005-06). It is clear from the findings that age and educational gap among the couples have positive effect on their fertility implying that with the increase in age and education difference among couples, fertility also increases.