South India Fertility Project (SIFP)

Part of ’Population and Space in South India’ project

Objectives

In a demographic landscape known to be more volatile than its common representations, the rapid progress made in South India can be viewed as an index of the demographic progress of the rest of the country in the next ten years. The above project aims to analyse the spatial aspects to regional demographic variations. It focuses on the present decline in fertility, the first indicator of the demographic revolution that is tranforming the present profile of a region poised to be like Europe where population growth is regressing.

This project is aimed in the first instance at enhancing the present database by a collection of innovative data on contemporary regional demographic diversity at macro and micro levels. The professed theoretical approaches nothwithstanding, an integration of the structural (educational, economic etc) and contextual (socio-cultural, distributional mechanisms etc) components into the dynamics of the study remains a fundamental objective.

The project also attempts to methodically moblise the regional scientific community through a study of the factors responsible for the decline in fertility. This is achieved by a sharing of tools, results and views that attempt to explain the extraordinary demographic progress of the region. The second publication on the South India Fertiliy project will consolidate the results obtained by integrating the contributions of more than 10 SIFP participants

Materials and Methods

The research undertaken is based on the exploitation of secondary data (census), acquisition of new data (spatial documents) and field survey results obtained from specific zones (rational choice of 10 regional fields of study). The creation of a System of Geographical Information (SGI) in South India constituted the preliminary stage in the implementation of this project. This SGI facilitated the creation of an interactive CD ROM and electronic atlas. SGI data exploitation also led to original analyses of Indian spatial grouping and that of tools derived from geostatics ordinarily confined to the field of Environmental Sciences. It has above all enabled the development of complemetary research complementary research based on varied themes. In a second phase, data on an all-India basis has been consolidated from (provisional) results of the 2001 census.

The present study combines diverse statistical and classical methodologies including qualitative analyses of the selected sites according to their socio-demographic profile. In fact, the first phase of SIFP comprises of a regional analysis of the demographic trends for publication as a summary. Innovative analyses based on geostatic modelisation methods, contribute towards the generation of additonal information on spatial structurisation in South India.

The second phase of SIFP, completed in 2003, is based on field investigations carried out in 10 South Indian village sites : these villages were subjected over several months to a common thematic scrutiny (dimensions of social transformations in the last 20 years) and methodology (local monography, focus and group discussions, individual interviews etc). A complementary study was effectuated on the functioning of the civil state.

Partners

• Laboratoire Population-Environnement-Développement, IRD and Université de Provence
• Department of Population Studies, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore
• Department of Population Studies, Sri Venkateshwara University, Tirupati
• Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram
• Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore

Funding

• Institut Français de Pondichéry
• Wellcome Trust
• Laboratoire Population-Environnement-Développement,
• IRD et Université de Provence
• Department of Population Studies, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore
• Department of Population Studies, Sri Venkateshwara University, Tirupati
• Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram
• Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore

Team

IFP

• Dr. CZ Guilmoto, DR, IRD
• S. Vingadassamy, ingénieur, IFP

Others

• Prof. N Audinarayana, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore
• Prof. P Kulkarni JNU, New Delhi
• Prof. S Krishnamoorthy, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore
• Prof. P. Ramachandran, SV University, Tirupati
• Dr S Irudaya Rajan, CDS, Thiruvananthapuram
• Prof. KNM Raju, ISEC, Bangalore
• Dr TV Sekher, ISEC, Bangalore Prof. Gunasekaran, Pondicherry Université
• Dr. M. Chakrabarty, Bonn Universität
• S. Callikan, Paris V

Main Outputs

Seminars

South Indian Fertility Transition in Comparative Perspective, séminaire CDS-IFP, Thiruvananthapuram, April 6-8 1998.

Volumes

• Fertility Transition in South India

Edited by Christophe Z. Guilmoto, S. Irudaya Rajan. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2005, 460 p.
Language: English. Rs. 895 ($ 21)

This volume brings together 13 well-researched and original essays which describe and analyse the trajectory of fertility decline in the south Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.

Documenting the fact that the fertility decline occurred in regions with vast differences in development indicators, the contributors argue that this transition must be understood as a cumulative result of several factors including family planning policies, socio-economic transformation, and changes in social perceptions towards fertility, contraception, marriage, family and child rearing. Combining various qualitative and quantitative techniques with field studies and historical analysis, the contributors go beyond the formal tools of demography and develop an original Geographical Information System (GIS), a spatialized database encompassing south Indian districts.

Keywords: demography, fertility, South India

• GUILMOTO C. Z., & VAGUET A., eds., 2000. Essays on Population and Space in India, French Institute, Pondichéry., 260 p.

Chapters in books

• GUILMOTO C. Z., & KULKARNI, P.M. 2002. Les femmes, la caste et l’état. Cinquante ans de planification familiale en Inde In A. Gautier, ed., les politiques de planification familiale, Ceped, Paris.

Articles

• GUILMOTO C. Z., & RAJAN S.I., 2002, District Level Estimates of Fertility from India’s 2001 Census, Economic and Political Weekly, February 16, XXXVII, 7, 665-672.

• GUILMOTO C. Z., & RAJAN S.I., 2001. Spatial Patterns of Fertility Change in Indian Districts, Population and Development Review, 27, 4, 713-738.

• SEKHER, T.V., RAJU K.N.M., & SIVAKUMAR M.N., 2001. Fertility Transition in Karnataka, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXXVI, No.51, December 22-28.

Other

• CALLIKAN S., 2003. l’enregistrement des naissances en Inde: le cas du Tamil Nadu, M.Phil Dissertation, Paris V.

The SIFP materials are available on website www.demographie.net/sifp