AccScience Publishing / GHES / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/ghes.4219
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Fertility model evolution: A survey on mathematical models of age-specific fertility with application to Nepalese and Malaysian data

Arjun Kumar Gaire1,2* Yogendra Bahadur Gurung1 Tara Prasad Bhusal3
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1 Central Department of Population Studies, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Nepal
2 Department of Science and Humanities, Khwopa Engineering College, Purbanchal University, Bhaktapur, Nepal
3 Central Department of Economics, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Nepal
Submitted: 11 July 2024 | Accepted: 14 September 2024 | Published: 11 November 2024
© 2024 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Fertility pattern analysis and modeling to smooth age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) form a well-established research field that holds particular importance for Asian countries. In developed nations, ASFRs typically display a bimodal skewed fertility curve, whereas, in developing countries, they usually exhibit a unimodal skewed fertility curve that diverges from the normal one. For decades, demographic experts worldwide have been interested in creating models using deterministic and stochastic approaches to represent these fertility curves. In this regard, parametric and non-parametric models have been created, with the latter providing a better fit for ASFR data. This research investigates the evolution of fertility models aimed at smoothing ASFRs. It explores suitable alternative models for countries with fast-declining, unimodal, and skewed fertility curves of ASFRs, such as Nepal and Malaysia. Nepal’s fertility rate is transitioning from a high level toward the replacement rate (2.1) at the year 2021; meanwhile, Malaysia’s fertility rate (1.7) in the year 2021 has dropped below the replacement rate. Given the lack of a universally applicable model for ASFR pattern variation, this study proposes the Kumaraswamy log-logistic distribution as a promising model to represent the ASFRs of Nepal and Malaysia accurately. Various approaches, including the Akaike information criterion, and Bayesian information criterion, are employed to validate the fitting of the proposed model.

Keywords
Age-specific fertility rate
Parametric
Non-parametric
Malaysia
Nepal
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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