Volume 22 - Article 10 | Pages 211–236
Modeling fertility curves in Africa
Date received: | 17 Feb 2009 |
Date published: | 12 Feb 2010 |
Word count: | 5782 |
Keywords: | Africa, age-specific fertility rate (ASFR), Akaike Information Criterion, complementary error function, cubic/quadratic spline, polynomial model |
DOI: | 10.4054/DemRes.2010.22.10 |
Abstract
The modeling of fertility patterns is an essential method researchers use to understand world-wide population patterns. Various types of fertility models have been reported in the literature to capture the patterns specific to developed countries. While much effort has been put into reducing fertility rates in Africa, models which describe the fertility patterns have not been adequately described. This article presents a flexible parametric model that can adequately capture the varying patterns of the age-specific fertility curves of African countries. The model has parameters that are interpretable in terms of demographic indices. The performance of this model was compared with other commonly used models and Akaike’s Information Criterion was used for selecting the model with best fit. The presented model was able to reproduce the empirical fertility data of 11 out of 15 countries better than the other models considered.
Author's Affiliation
Ezra Gayawan - Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Nigeria
Samson B. Adebayo - Society for Family Health (SFH), Nigeria
Reuben A. Ipinyomi - University of Ilorin, Nigeria
Benjamin Oyejola - University of Ilorin, Nigeria
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