Modeling fertility curves in Africa

Ezra Gayawan, Reuben A. Ipinyomi, Benjamin Oyejola and Samson B. Adebayo
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Ezra Gayawan: Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA)
Reuben A. Ipinyomi: University of Ilorin
Benjamin Oyejola: University of Ilorin
Samson B. Adebayo: Society for Family Health (SFH)

Demographic Research, 2010, vol. 22, issue 10, 211-236

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.

Keywords: age-specific fertility rate (ASFR); Africa; cubic/quadratic spline; polynomial model; complementary error function; Akaike Information Criterion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:demres:v:22:y:2010:i:10

DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2010.22.10

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