Social and Economic Factors Affecting Ethnic Fertility Differentials in Sri Lanka

Abstract

In the Sri Lankan context, society consists of different ethnic groups with distinctive languages, cultures, values and norms, and the behavior of people in many ethnic groups is attached to their ethnicity. Further at present Sri Lankan society has also changed with the influence of various economic and political policies. Especially modern economic and political policies influenced on Family, the bottom of the society pyramid among different ethnic groups. Therefore, the main objective of the study is to identify the impact of ethnic differentials on fertility. This study used secondary data from the Sri Lanka Demographic and Health Survey (SLDHS) conducted in 2006/2007 by the Department of Census and Statistics. 13753 currently married women aged 15-49 years were used to identify their fertility behavior by study. Poisson regression model was used for analysis. The study found that after controlling for demographic and socio economic variables, Tamil and Muslim women are statistically significant and show a positive relationship with number of children. Considering the socio economic and demographic factor variations which affect fertility among ethnic groups, age at marriage, partners’ and women’s education negatively effect on all ethnic groups. All ethnic groups show a positive relationship between number of children ever born and number of children preferred. Wealth status of household and age difference between spouses show a negative relationship with fertility. “There is a positive relationship between the number of women who have not been frequently exposed to the media and the number of children born.