Retrospective Study of Investigation of Possible Predictors for Total Fertility Rate in India

Total fertility rate (TFR) is the most acceptable and widely used measure of current fertility. Since TFR is based on age-specific fertility rate which required the total number of births in different age groups as well as age of female. When the population is illiterate or older then the information on age may have some recall bias, misreporting digit preference etc., thus in this situation TFR may departed from the actual. Therefore, need some indirect methodology which enables us to have an idea about the estimation of TFR. In this study an attempt has been made to identify some predictors that the explain TFR and try to suggest the best combination of predictors to get estimate of TFR. The methodology used in this study is essentially based on the regression technique. The identification and acceptance of possible predictors are based on the coefficient of determination. The data for the major states of India from National Family Health Survey (NFHS 4) is used for the analysis.