Fertility decline and differences in less-developed countries: an anthropological microstudy of some communities of West Bengal, India and Upper Khumbu, Nepal.

The role of socioeconomic and other cultural factors as determinants of fertility change has been widely discussed, with some scholars emphasising an inverse relation between socioeconomic development and fertility, others suggesting that no such relation necessarily exists, and yet others indicating that by using data from various sources it is possible to "prove" that a given country's crude birth rate has declined, remained unchanged or increased. Demographic data are presented on age-sex structure, completed and total fertility rates, and age specific fertility rates by age cohorts of women, from several small, anthropological population units of West Bengal, India and Upper Khumbu, Nepal, exposed to various physical and cultural environmental stresses. The data show that fertility has declined in most of the populations/subpopulations studied and that the decline may, deductively, be attributed to economic development via greater family planning practices.