Fertility in the Recent Decade in Selected Countries around the World : Comparison using Non-Reproductive Life Table Measures

Non-Reproductive Life Table (NRLT) and the Reproductive Life Table Parity Distribution (RLT-PD) give the reproductive history of a hypothetical cohort of women assumed to reproduce according to the given schedule of Age-Specific Fertility Rates (ASFR) by single years of age, and is not affected by mortality and/or migration. From these Tables the following measures can be obtained – Total Fertility Rate (TFR), Intensity of Child Bearing (ICB), Ultimate Proportion of Women Not Reproducing (UPWNR), Mean age of fertility schedule (m), Expected Years of Motherhood at starting of Reproductive Life (E(15M)), Average age at First Birth (AFB), Average age at Last Birth (ALB), Percentage distribution of Births by Parity (% by Parity), Reproductive Life Table Parity Progression Ratios (RLT-PPR), average ages at different parities (Mean age at Parities), and Reproductive Life Table Closed Birth Intervals (RLT-CBI). These are standardized measures very useful for comparing fertility situations over time as well as between populations. These Tables are constructed for 14 countries around the World for which ASFR schedules were available from the United Nations Demographic Year Books. It is seen that reproduction has become concentrated in (20-34) age range and lower TFR is always associated with high UPWNR.