Page 75 - IJPS-7-2

International Journal of
Population Studies Age-adjusted measures for fertility transition

that the composition of the female population of the country Conflict of interest
underlay the decrease in TFRs. It therefore can be argued
that had the study by Ariho, et al. (2018) analyzed ASFRs The authors certify that they have no conflicts of interest
as the dependent variable instead of CEB, the findings of to declare.
the study would have observed a more pronounced effect of Author contributions
behavioral changes than compositional characteristics. This
is because it has already been shown in different studies that Conceptualization: Pedzisai Ndagurwa, Clifford Odimegwu
the trends in fertility decline in African populations have Formal analysis: Pedzisai Ndagurwa
been parallel across the age-groups and socioeconomic Investigation: Pedzisai Ndagurwa
classes (Garenne & Zwang, 2006; Udjo, 1996). The study Supervision: Clifford Odimegwu
by Liu & Raftery (2020) which used TFR as a dependent Writing – original draft: Pedzisai Ndagurwa
variable employing Granger causality found moderate Writing – review & editing: Clifford Odimegwu
effects of modern contraceptives on fertility transition and
we found similar results elsewhere by analyzing ASMFRs, Ethics approval and consent to participate
finding that changes in reproductive behaviors have Not applicable. The study analysed publicly available
been more influential than compositional characteristics secondary data.
(Ndagurwa & Odimegwu, 2019).
Consent for publication
5. Conclusions
Not applicable.
This study sought to investigate the relative benefits of
analyzing cumulative and age-adjusted measures of fertility Availability of data
in multivariable analysis of drivers of fertility trends. The Data analyzed in this study are publicly available on the
CEB and ASMFRs were used to represent the cumulative Measure DHS website https://dhsprogram.com/data/
and age-adjusted measures of fertility respectively. Data available-datasets.cfm. To access the data, researchers
were obtained from all the DHS surveys from Ghana, should register as a DHS data user. The access to the
Kenya, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe collected between 1988 datasets is granted for legitimate research purposes.
and 2015 were analyzed. The results of the study suggest
that ASMFRs are more effective at identifying short term References
changes in marital fertility rates and associated factors
compared to the average CEB. In conclusion, the study Adhikari, R. (2010). Demographic, socio-economic, and cultural
recommends that the multivariable analysis of drivers of factors affecting fertility differentials in Nepal. BMC
marital fertility transition, as also for fertility transition in Pregnancy and Childbirth, 10(1):19.
general, should look to use age adjusted fertility measures https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2393-10-19
as dependent variables instead of the cumulative CEB Al-Balushi, M.S., Ahmed, M.S., Islam, M.M., & Khan, M.H.R.
measure. (2020). Multilevel poisson regression modeling to identify
factors influencing the number of children ever born
Acknowledgments to married women in Oman. Journal of Statistics and
We acknowledge the department of Demography and Management Systems, 23:1-17.
Population Studies, and the Humanities Graduate Centre https://doi.org/10.1080/09720510.2019.1709328
for the in-kind support throughout the research process Ariho, P., Kabagenyi, A., & Nzabona, A. (2018). Determinants of
for this study. change in fertility pattern among women in Uganda during

Funding the period 2006-2011. Fertility Research and Practice, 4:4.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40738-018-0049-1
This paper was directly supported by the University of the
Witwatersrand’s Faculty of Humanities which provided Ariho, P., & Nzabona, A. (2019). Determinants of change in
funding towards the writing of this research article. The fertility among women in rural areas of Uganda. Journal of
Pregnancy, 2019:6429171.
paper also benefited from funding from the National
Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS)- https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/6429171
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Be-Ofuriyua, J.E., & Emina, J. (2002). Accelerating fertility
Africa (CODESRIA) doctoral fellowship which financially transition in sub-Saharan Africa-UN conventional: A point
supported the larger body of work from which this study of view-Brief article-statistical data included. UN Chronicle,
came out of. 39(2):3.

Volume 7 Issue 2 (2021) 69 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.v7i2.354