A Study of Relationship between Maternal Height and Fertility: Indian Concern

Abstract

Demographers, as well as public health professionals, have been quite interested to study the relationship between maternal body size and fertility. In this paper, the relationship between mother height, number of surviving children and parity is investigated for India and its major states. The mean number of children ever born is high in shorter mother and mean duration of first birth interval among the taller mothers is less than the shorter mothers. Taller women tend to have fewer children but more surviving children. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) collect the information on fertility, infant and child mortality and the practice of family planning. For this study authors have used NFHS-4 data.