Abstract
This is an endeavour to study the plausible causal relationship between cultural factors and humanfertility in a more or less non-industrial rural population (schedule tribes) in Orissa, an Eastern Indian state. Thebivariate and multivariate statistical analyses showed that lower level of child loss showed significant association withlower fertility. Other categorical variables such as higher age at woman’s marriage, self-choice of mate by woman andnuclear family showed negative effect on fertility, both before and after adjustment for other independents andcovariates. The observation of fertility by different villages and tribes/caste gives an impression that the populationcomposition, distance from urban centres, community size, distribution and aborigine ness have some bearing onfertility.
