Differential Fertility: Impact of Female Education and Employment Status of Wives on Reproductive Behavior in Southern Punjab

The most important reason for studying population is to gain better understanding how societies function and change. In the study of demography, fertility is the most important and perhaps the most complicated aspect of the population. It plays a significant role in the size, composition and distribution. The importance of demographic study lies on population growth can affect our lives in a variety of ways by creating social, economic and political problems. The general objective of the study is to provide information about differential fertility with special reference to social stratification and situation analysis of Southern Punjab, to evaluate the impact of education attainment of female and employment status of wives on fertility. The variation in fertility is caused by various factors such as, educational attainment, economic status, occupation, age, age at the time of marriage, marital period, employment status of woman, religious, race, family structure, health status, etc. These factors are related to each other one being influenced by the other. The main objectives of the present study were to find out the various socio-economic factors that lead to higher fertility and determine the fertility differential among the various couples according to social stratification. Three main districts of Southern Punjab Multan, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan were selected for the study. Stratified method of sampling was used. In the present study 600 respondents were interviewed, the interview schedule technique of data collection was used. The analysis of data was made by using statistical package of social science.