Cultural Influences on the Timing of First Births in India: Large Differences that add up to Little Difference

Abstract

In this paper I comment on the unexpected finding from primary and secondary data that, although the age at effective marriage is significantly lower in North India compared to the southern part of the country, mother's age at first birth is very similar in both regions. That is, the first birth interval is much longer in the North. Standard socio-economic and biological reasons for this difference are found to provide incomplete and unsatisfactory explanations – instead, the longer first birth interval in North India is explained in terms of the marriage and kinship patterns in this area which lead to (i) lower frequency of intercourse and (ii) long periods of abstinence when the wife visits her parental home. Both these factors operate primarily during the first years of marriage and result in a convergence of the ages at first birth in the two regions. The argument, therefore, questions the correctness of policy prescriptions which equate early marriage with an early start of childbearing, and seek to control the latter by changing the former.