Life Course Timing of Mortality Exposure and Fertility Behavior

Mortality and fertility are important, intricately linked drivers of population change. Although past demographic research has focused largely on population-level mortality rates, individual-level mortality experiences can also shape fertility. The timing of mortality exposure over the life course might distinctly shape individual-level fertility behavior, with some time periods being more sensitive than others. Using detailed data from a sample of reproductive-aged women in Matlab, Bangladesh, this study investigates how mortality exposure, specifically to family bereavements, across three time periods (the focal woman’s childhood, adolescence, and post-marriage adulthood) is linked to fertility quantum and tempo. Results suggest exposure to kin mortality is associated with an increased fertility quantum despite delaying fertility tempo. We also find that mortality exposure post marriage (rather than in a woman’s childhood or adolescence) is the most crucial life course period in terms of the relationship between mortality exposure and fertility behavior. These findings distinctively underscore the need to account for mortality exposure in our understanding of individual-level fertility behavior, and also the importance of specific environmental components, such as the life course timing of mortality exposure, to better understand this relationship. These findings are consistent with previous literature on the association of mortality exposure with fertility, but our novel life course analyses contradict expectations that early life mortality exposure will be especially influential on later fertility.