Residence background and fertility in Greater Bombay

Abstract The residence background of wives who migrate to metropolitan areas plays an important role in determining their fertility. From the data collected during 1966, relating to 7,872 currently married women of Greater Bombay, an attempt was made to establish differentials in marital fertility by residence background of the wives. This was categorized into three groups - non-migrants, urban migrants and rural migrants. It was observed that rural migrant wives exhibited significantly higher fertility compared with the other two groups, and this was explained by their lower educational attainment. Between the non-migrant and the urban migrant wives the latter consistently showed lower fertility for all age groups up to 40, while there was a reversal in the age group 40 and above, where non-migrants exhibited lower fertility. The urban migrant wives showed a somewhat higher level of education, most likely on account of selectivity, compared to the non-migrants. However, presence of a sizeable number of Parsee wives, characterized by a distinct urban culture and considerably lower fertility, was largely responsible for the low fertility of the non-migrant wives in the age group 40 and above. The variable that has emerged as the most influential in creating fertility differentials is education of the wife, which is shown to be negatively associated with the level of fertility. Wife's education explains to a large extent the observed fertility differentials by residence background.