Event

The number of births (parity) clearly bears a relationship to a woman’s age.  A negative binomial regression model for parity is developed, in which mean parity is modelled with two components relating to age. The first is a parametric growth curve which operates during the childbearing years. The second is a cohort effect which models changes in birth rates over time, and is a nonparametric term. The model is implemented on Fijian and US data, and provides insight into different trends in childbearing.