Social, cultural, and economic determinants of age at birth of first child in Peninsular Malaysia

Summary In order to unravel the complex set of the determinants of fertility, we suggest that the child-bearing process be separated into a sequence of events and intervals. As the first step in the child-bearing process, age at first birth is a critical variable. Using data from the 1966-67 West Malaysia Family Survey, we formulate and test a model of the cultural, social and economic determinants of the timing of first birth among a sample of mothers, aged 30-44. Social origins, measured by the woman's father's occupation and the woman's birthplace are not important determinants, but education, early work experience, and ethnicity exercise very strong effects on the age at first birth. Age at first marriage mediates much of the effect of background variables, which suggest that there is little use of contraception to plan the first birth interval. The strong effect of ethnicity is consistent with a cultural interpretation, but important qualifications are noted.     

Age and marital status at first birth and the pace of subsequent fertility

Taking care to minimize the truncation bias inherent in cross-sectional data and controlling for other variables, this paper demonstrates the strong effects of both age and marital status at first birth on the pace of subsequent fertility. These effects are particularly strong in the interval immediately following the first birth but persist even into the fourth interval. Important differences are found with respect to the experience of rapid fertility, rather than in the mean lengths of intervals. These results add to the growing attention to the social dimensions of age as a variable in fertility processes.     

Measurement and Replication: Evaluating the Consistency of Eight U. S. Fertility Surveys

This paper addresses the comparability of data from eight national fertility surveys conducted in the United States between 1955 and 1980. We examine the extent to which substantive conclusions about the levels and correlates of the timing offirst birth vary across these data sources by comparing samples of women who were eligible to be included in more than one study. Results obtained from Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and logistic regression analyses of several measures of timing indicate few study effects. Thus findings based on data from one survey can be replicated with comparable data from another. One notable exception is the relationship between contraceptive use prior to the first birth and the timing of that birth. The contraceptive variable appears to be poorly measured, leading to unstable estimates of the relationship. In general, our results suggest: (1) the feasibility of pooling data from the various surveys when modeling delayed childbearing; and (2) reasonable accuracy in assessing trends in the timing of first birth from multiple data sources.