Social Support Networks and Fertility in South Asia: How Does Allocare Shape Fertility in the Context of High Social Competition?

Saswata Ghosh, Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (IDSK)
David A Nolin, Penn State University
Susan Schaffnit, PSU
Rebecca Sear, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)
Nurul Alam, ICDDR,B
Rajesh Kumar Rai, Society for Health and Demographic Surveillance
Richard Sosis, University of Connecticut
John Shaver, University of Otago
Mary Shenk, The Pennsylvania State University

How does support from social network members shape fertility? Cross-culturally, help from kin and other social network members has often been found to increase women’s fertility in both high fertility pre-demographic transition contexts and high-income, low fertility contexts. This literature has emphasized the role of grandmothers in supporting fertility by helping to care for grandchildren, and older siblings in helping to care for younger children. Here we examine the effect of support from social network members on fertility in South Asia, a region where this topic has been little studied. Using detailed ego network data on social support collected in 2022 in HDSS sites in Matlab, Bangladesh and Birbhum, India, we use Cox proportional hazard models to examine effects on interbirth intervals and parity progression models to examine effects on parity. We find clear evidence of a pattern in which support from older social network members, particularly grandmothers, is associated with slower birth intervals and reduced fertility while support from older children, and younger relatives in general, is associated with higher fertility and faster interbirth intervals. We also find that these patterns are more pronounced when fertility targets have been met in terms of both numbers and genders of children.

Keywords: Social network methods, Neighbourhood/contextual effect analysis, Family Planning and Contraception, Fertility

See paper.