An Empirical Analysis on the Fertility Rate in South Asia

Fertility rate are declining sharply in South Asian countries during the recent decades. This paper is an attempt to explore the factors impacting fertility rate in South Asian countries by applying the econometric model of panel data. By applying the SUR method on the 1973-2013 panel data, we find that education, urbanization, economic growth, culture and religion are important factors to influence fertility rate in South Asian countries. Furthermore this study concludes that education, urbanization, economic growth has negative and significant effect on fertility rate while culture and religion are closely related with fertility rate.