Analyzing Variety of Birth Intervals: A Stochastic Approach

Abstract

Usually, while studying human fertility through stochastic approach, mainly two dimensions of fertility are considered, viz., (i) how frequently females give births in a given interval of time and (ii) how the births are spaced. The second approach is normally called as study of fertility through birth intervals. The present chapter mainly focuses its attention on the study of birth intervals. It is known that birth intervals are very much affected by sampling frame and are also affected by truncation of observations. Consequently, there are variety of birth intervals where intervals are ascertained under different conditions. This article attempts to derive probability distributions of different types of birth intervals, their uses, and limitations. It also discusses the problems of drawing valid inferences when population of females is heterogeneous with respect to fertility parameters. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.