Strategising the Timing of First Birth in the Cultural Context of Netherlands and Karnataka in India

Sarbani Banerjee, University of Groningen
Frans Willekens, University of Groningen

Culture, which provides the normative and the interpretative rules, affects the proximate determinants of fertility. In this paper we investigate the effect of culture on occurrence and timing of first birth through birth cohorts. The strategies that women adopt to the timing of first birth are considered in the two different cultural contexts; that of the Netherlands and Karnataka in South India. The data are from family and fertility surveys, The National Family Health Survey 1998-99 of Karnataka and the Family and Fertility Survey 1998 of the Netherlands. Women in Karnataka have their first child early because she has to prove her fecundity, while women in the Netherlands have their first child late since she is expected to give priority to economic independence. the case studies demonstrate two different strategies evident through the intergenerational pattern of cohorts that women living in different cultural contexts adopt as regards the timing of first birth.