Estimation of Fertility Rates by Single Year of Age for Large States in India, 2005-2009

Fertility rates by single year of age of mothers are not available for India. Therefore, they have to be estimated from five year age groups using appropriate statistical method. The Sample Registration System (SRS) in India has published fertility rates by five-year age groups, 15-19 to 45-49 for the twenty large states and India from 2005 to 2009. A comparison of these rates with similar estimates by the United Nations (2010) indicates that the SRS data suffer from underestimation in early reproductive ages and overestimation in the older reproductive ages. The SRS five-year fertility rates, therefore, have to be adjusted first before embarking on the estimation of single year rates. Thus, the objectives of the paper are: (1) correct the five - year data on fertility rates; (2) develop single year age-specific fertility rates by using the Pearson Curve, Types I / III/ and other interpolation methods : Beers and Quadratic Spline; and (3) discuss the rationale and application of the selected Pearson Curve for projecting the number of births. The final outcome will be a set of adjusted single year fertility rates for the large states in India for each year, 2005 to 2009.