MODELLING FERTILITY PATTERNS OF PAKISTAN DURING 1984-2007

Modelling fertility patterns of a population has gained popularity among the demographers in recent years. This article investigates the fertility patterns of Pakistan and its urban and rural regions. The analysis of age specific fertility rates (ASFRs) has demonstrated high fertility in rural population as compared to urban and overall Pakistan population during the period 1984-2007. Substantial respective decreases of 44.98%, 48.72% and 46.76% in total fertility rates (TFRs) of rural, urban and overall Pakistan have been observed during the past 23 years. Two parametric models, viz., Hadwiger function (Hadwiger, 1940) and Peristera and Kostaki model (Peristera and Kostaki, 2007) were used to model the ASFRs of rural, urban and overall Pakistan during the year 2007. The models used in this study have canonical demographic interpretation whereas the previous endeavors used to analyze the ASFRs of Pakistan were lacking this important aspect (Nasir et al., 2009). Using model selection criteria (Montgomery et al., 2012), the Peristera and Kostaki model (Peristera and Kostaki, 2007) was found parsimonious to model the ASFRs of Pakistan where the estimated coefficients have practical demographic interpretation.