A Study on the Existing Relationship between Poverty and Fertility

Abstract

This dissertation,"A Study on the Existing Relationship between Poverty and Fertility" is performed to examine the relationship between poverty and fertility in Surumkhim VDC. This thesis is based on primary and secondary data. The primary data was collected from the Surumkhim Village Development Committee (ward 1-9), Taplejung district. The secondary data was obtained fromNepal Living Standard Survey andVillage profile available from Surumkhim VDC.The objective of this study is to find out the income based poverty and analyze the relationship between poverty and fertility behavior.The result of the study showed income based poverty is higher in study area than national average. Poor households have large household size compared to non-poor households. The study shows poverty and fertility are directly related to each other as the poverty increases thefertility performance increases. The study found that the households belong to different caste and ethnic groups; populationcomposition observed for Rai 19.4 percent, followed by Limbu 19 percent, Gurung 17.9percent, Tamang 16.3 percentand other.The total population of the study area was recorded 515 people in 96 households with a woman aged 15-49 was chosen for sampling. Among515 sample population,253 males were(49.13percent) and 262 female (50.87percent) with average family size 5.52. The sex ratio is found 96.19 which show that female population is relatively largerthan male population. Out of 351 population 83.0 percent were found literate and 17.0 percentilliterate yet. The percent of male literate is higher (91.1 percent) than female (75.1 percent) and aged 15 years and above 67.8 percent are married and 29.8 percent are unmarried.The mean CEB is 3.8 children per married man. In occupation,agriculture 42.1percent and foreign employer 4.1 percent In the study area,74.83 percent of household had yearly income below Rs.200,000(comparing with nationalaverage Rs.202,374).Out of 96 households 61.5percenthavefoodaccess just for 3 to 6 month.The poor family which they couldn't feed their family throughout the year and they have to borrow the money from businessman with high rate 30 percent of interest and they are compelled to buy household requirements in an expensive cost rate.They had to face three types of disadvantage i.e. first high price in credit in purchasing food items, second high interest (30-36percent)of debt and low price in selling cardamom to the money lender or businessman. Thatis one of the reasons of poverty in study area.The mean CEB to a woman was found to higher in poor groups than non-poor groups. The study showed that income level and fertility are inversely proportion to each other. It is showed that lower the income level higher the CEB.Therefore, poverty is directly related to fertility.