Childspacing in Peninsular Malaysia: 1966/67 and 1974.

Abstract

This dissertation examines patterns of childbearing among currently married women in Peninsular Malaysia. The changes in these patterns and the factors that affect these changes were the focus of our analysis. Data from two surveys were used in this investigation, the West Malaysian Family Survey of 1966/67 and the Malaysian Fertility and Family Survey of 1974. We first examined the data to see if there have been changes in spacing patterns from the older to the more recent marriage cohorts. Duration-specific cohort marital fertility rates were used to do this. We then examined the net effects of two factors, education and age at marriage on the spacing of births with controls for community groups, marriage cohorts and time, using multiple regression techniques. Duration-specific marital fertility rates for cohorts of currently married women show that there have been changes in the childbearing patterns of Peninsular Malaysian women. Childbearing is becoming increasingly concentrated in the early durations of marriage while substantial declines in fertility occurred at the longer durations of marriage. Increases in duration-specific rates, from the older to the more recent cohorts, are observed in the 0 to 4 year duration of marriage. Initial declines in duration-specific rates for 5 to 9, 10 to 14 and 15 to 19 year durations of marriage occurred between 1955 and 1960. The effect of age at marriage on fertility in the first five years of marriage is positive for women who married at younger ages but negative among women who married at older ages. At the longer durations of marriage both education and age at marriage have a negative relationship with fertility especially for the more recent cohorts. This offsets the increases in the first five years of marriage with an overall negative relationship between these factors and cumulative fertility. Among the more recent cohorts, the net effect of education on fertility was different among Malays, Chinese and Others in Peninsular Malaysia. While the effect of education on fertility in the first five years of marriage is positive among Malays, the reverse holds among Chinese. Among women in the older marriage cohorts, education has a curvilinear relationship with fertility in the first five years of marriage. The effect of education and age at marriage on fertility varied with time significantly when the events covered the period from 1954 to 1962. During this time changes were taking place in the social, economic and political facets of Peninsular Malaysia, in addition to the start of fertility decline.