Explain the various rates which are the used to measure the fertility of a population.

A lot of effort in the social science, especially in the last fifty years, has gone into the study of human fertility. Social scientists have used two different approaches, primary and secondary, to measure fertility. In the primary approach, fertility is measured with respect to live births per couple during childbearing age. This is also known as the family approach since it is based on the number of children born in a family. In the secondary approach, fertility is measured on the basis of vital statistics.

          It is important that two approaches are kept separate as they do not provide the same result. In the primary approach, stress is given on the complete reproductive performance of a woman with in her childbearing age. In the secondary approach, focus is on the reproductive performance of a women of different ages in particular years. This way, the first approach is part of micro-demography and the second approach is part of macro-demography

In order to measure the fertility of a population, a variety of statistical rates and ratios are used. These fall into three categories. These are:

·         Original rate

·         Derived rate

·         Related rate

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