Proximate Determinants of Fertility in Pakistan

The fertility level is the phenomenon which is the major determinant of population growth. Various studies conducted since early seventies and to date reveal that total fertility rate in Pakistan ranged between 6 to 5.4 and crude birth rate between 42 to 34 [Population Planning Council of Pakistan (1976); Population Welfare Division of Pakistan (1986); Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (199O) and Population and Fertility Indicators (1993). The levels and trends in fertility are influenced by various physiological, cultural, social, economic, behavioural, demographic and ecological factors. But on the bases of empirical evidences Bongaarts argues that most of the variation in fertility levels is attributed to the differential impact of four factors; namely marriage, contraceptive use, lactational infecundability, and induced abortion [Bongaarts (1978)].