Relationship between infant and child mortality and fertility--an enquiry into goan women.

OBJECTIVE: This paper has an attempt to demonstrate the influence of childhood mortality on fertility behaviour of women in Goa. METHODS: The replacement effect of child mortality has been examined by comparing fertility behaviour of those who have and who have not experienced a child loss. The insurance effect has been studied through fertility differentials of those who perceived that the level of mortality has decreased in the region with the women who left it to be the otherwise. RESULT: It shows that the net effect of child mortality could be substantial. Women with personal experience of child loss and having pessimistic opinion about the level of mortality, produced, on an average, about two children more than similar women who never experienced a child loss and were optimistic about the level. The tendency to replace a dead child was found to cut across the level of literacy and religious background of women. CONCLUSION : The insurance effect on the other hand, was predominant among illiterate women.