Socio-economic Factors and the Fertility of New Zealand Women

Socio-economic Factors and the Fertility of New Ze…
01 Dec 2001
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Socio-economic Factors and the Fertility of New Zealand Women is the first of three publications which set out to analyse some aspects of the data on the number of children born to women enumerated in the 1996 Census of Population and Dwellings. It is followed by a separate study of the relationship between ethnicity and fertility and how this contributes to the ethnic fabric of New Zealand life. The third study concerns the geography of fertility in which we consider spatial differentials in greater detail.

This volume examines the data and its background, looking especially at issues related to data sources and data quality. A brief consideration is given to the relationship between census data and vital statistics data. The data is then examined in relation to selected socio-economic characteristics of the respondents to identify some of the underlying relationships between these and fertility. We also consider the socio-economic consequences of fertility trends as reflected in the census data.

Purpose

This is the first of a series of three research reports planned to analyse aspects of the fertility data which have flowed from the 1996 Census results. It discusses some aspects of the census data obtained from women aged 15 years and over, particularly by the question on the number of children, and looks at the socioeconomic characteristics of these women. A detailed analysis of this data is a desideratum since it provides an understanding of some of the drivers for population change. While the primary focus here is on the national level, the relationship between socio-economic factors and fertility at the subnational level is important, as spatial differentials are significant. We therefore also look at some inter-relationships between fertility and the geographic and ethnic spaces. There is also a consideration of childfree women, an increasingly important social component.

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