Proximate determinants of fertility and mortality: A review of recent findings

Social, cultural, and economic factors that influence fertility must work through the intermediate variables or proximate determinants that directly affect reproduction. This paper reviews the proximate determinants framework and recent advances in knowledge of its components. In addition, efforts to develop a comparable model for analysis of mortality are described. It is concluded that, for fertility, although gaps in knowledge of proximate determinants remain and continuing periodic measurement is necessary to monitor their levels and changes, the primary need now is to improve understanding of the causal links between the social and economic features of a population and the proximate determinants.