Fertility Patterns and Family Planning Acceptance Among Slum Dwellers in Kanpur

Abstract

During the last two decades, a large number of studies have been published on slums. The studies have usually been conducted by various agencies as a part of successive population censuses, or as a part of general physical and socioeconomic surveys. Yet, very few have concentrated on the fertility of slum populations.

Conceptually, most of the slum studies have treated the slum as a unit of analysis. They have explained slum life in the context of dual economy assuming that slums are inhabited by poor rural-urban migrants of recent origin who are employed in the formal sector. The slums have often been projected as places of despair, and their life as being disorganized. This conceptualization has emerged largely from studies conducted in the slums of some of the largest tan cities of the country.