Volume 22 - Article 10 | Pages 211–236  

Modeling fertility curves in Africa

By Ezra Gayawan, Samson B. Adebayo, Reuben A. Ipinyomi, Benjamin Oyejola

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 EMAIL
• Samson B. Adebayo - Society for Family Health (SFH), Nigeria EMAIL
• Reuben A. Ipinyomi - University of Ilorin, Nigeria EMAIL
• Benjamin Oyejola - University of Ilorin, Nigeria EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

A Bayesian semiparametric multilevel survival modelling of age at first birth in Nigeria
Volume 28 - Article 45

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