IT was once thought that fertility below a level could not be achieved without changes in the material conditions of the people.

With the increase in the urbanization and industrialization, the concept of family in India, which once was to create and maintain a common culture among the members of the family, is undergoing changes.

In this report, we propose new measures of wanted and unwanted fertility based on actual and wanted parity progression ratios, and we apply these procedures to NFHS data for eight states in India.

On the World Population Day this year, there were two new features which are welcome: the first is the concern for environment in the context of population growth; and the second is the candid admission by the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare that we must get rid of the tyranny of fami

Dowry has been a widespread social evil among the Hindus. Now it has spread to other communities also such as Muslims and Christians as well. The Parliament passed the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961 with a view of eradicate the rampant evil.

In 1978, the Bangladesh family planning program launched a national program of outreach services that continues to the present. Young married women were hired and trained to visit women in their homes, offer contraceptive services, provide information, and support sustained use over time.

Inter-spouse communication, though not a new dimension of fertility and family planning research, has remained much less explored in the Indian context than any other correlate of contraceptive use and current fertility.

It is now common practice to infer the social status of women from their demographic characteristics. Yet it is not so easy to read through demographic progress, in terms of declines in mortality and fertility, to make unambiguous judgments about trends in women's social standing.

A number of recent studies [A] [D] have documented evidence to show that couples have a decided preference for a particular sex combination of children. For example, in many South Asian countries, including India, there is a strong preference for sons over daughters.

High family size desire and low acceptance of family planning constitute, the two main factors underlying the high fertility of the Indian population. Excessive loss of children in early childhood in rural areas is considered to be contributory to both of the above factors.