Demographic, socio-economic, and cultural factors affecting fertility differentials in Nepal

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Traditionally Nepalese society favors high fertility. Children are a symbol of well-being both socially and economically. Although fertility has been decreasing in Nepal since 1981, it is still high compared to many other developing countries. This paper is an attempt to examine the demographic, socio-economic, and cultural factors for fertility differentials in Nepal.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This paper has used data from the Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS 2006). The analysis is confined to ever married women of reproductive age (8,644). Both bivariate and multivariate analyses have been performed to describe the fertility differentials. The bivariate analysis (one-way ANOVA) was applied to examine the association between children ever born and women's demographic, socio-economic, and cultural characteristics. Besides bivariate analysis, the net effect of each independent variable on the dependent variable after controlling for the effect of other predictors has also been measured through multivariate analysis (multiple linear regressions).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The mean numbers of children ever born (CEB) among married Nepali women of reproductive age and among women aged 40-49 were three and five children, respectively. There are considerable differentials in the average number of children ever born according to women's demographic, socio-economic, and cultural settings. Regression analysis revealed that age at first marriage, perceived ideal number of children, place of residence, literacy status, religion, mass media exposure, use of family planning methods, household headship, and experience of child death were the most important variables that explained the variance in fertility. Women who considered a higher number of children as ideal (β = 0.03; p < 0.001), those who resided in rural areas (β = 0.02; p < 0.05), Muslim women (β = 0.07; p < 0.001), those who had ever used family planning methods (β = 0.08; p < 0.001), and those who had a child-death experience (β = 0.31; p < 0.001) were more likely to have a higher number of CEB compared to their counterparts. On the other hand, those who married at a later age (β = -0.15; p < 0.001), were literate (β = -0.05; p < 0.001), were exposed to both (radio/TV) mass media (β = -0.05; p < 0.001), were richest (β = -0.12; p < 0.001), and were from female-headed households (β = -0.02; p < 0.05) had a lower number of children ever born than their counterparts.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The average number of children ever born is high among women in Nepal. There are many contributing factors for the high fertility, among which are age at first marriage, perceived ideal number of children, literacy status, mass media exposure, wealth status, and child-death experience by mothers. All of these were strong predictors for CEB. It can be concluded that programs should aim to reduce fertility rates by focusing on these identified factors so that fertility as well as infant and maternal mortality and morbidity will be decreased and the overall well-being of the family maintained and enhanced.</p

Evaluation of pesticide dynamics of the WAVE-model

A validation study of the physical based pesticide leaching model WAVE is presented. The model considers a mechanistic description of 1-D water, solute and heat transport. Linear sorption isotherms and first order degradation sub-models are used to simulate pesticide sorption and transformation. The first order degradation rates are reduced when temperature and moisture stress in the soil profile occur. The model is conceived to describe pesticide fate within rigid mineral soils. Model tests were therefore done using data collected at a sandy (Vredepeel) and a loamy soil (Weiherbach). Both field data and lysimeter data were used to evaluate the performance to describe water, bromide, ethoprophos, bentazone and isoproturon transport in soil. The evaluation procedure presented by Vanclooster et al. (Agric. Water Mgmt,, Vol. 44, pp. 1-19) was completely adopted. The measured soil moisture in the sandy soil could only successfully be described after calibrating the hydraulic functions using field observed soil moisture profiles. Zn addition, the predicted balance terms, such as the soil water drainage, were subject to a lot of uncertainty. Bromide transport in the sandy soil was poorly described with the equilibrium solute transport model. Anomalies were also observed when simulating the transport of the inert tracer in the lysimeter at the loamy site. The fate of the weakly sorbing bentazone component was appropriately described at the Vredepeel field site. However, the retardation of the strongly sorbing ethoprophos and isoproturon components was poorly simulated. Further, the pesticide dissipation varied considerably in time, which could not be accounted for with the first order degradation model. The need for model calibration illustrates the constraints when using mechanistic models such as WAVE to predict field scale pesticide fate and transport. The adoption of a mechanistic model for registration purposes may therefore be subjected to a lot of uncertainty. Ln addition, processes affecting pesticide fate and transport are still poorly represented within the model. Deficiencies are related to the description of non-linear sorption, time dependent pesticide degradation, and pesticide volatilisation. Future developments with the model should therefore envisage to improve the parametrisation reduce the output uncertainty, and improve process descriptions of essential processes. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved