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Multilingual Demographic Dictionary, second unified edition, English volume

Birth

Multilingual Demographic Dictionary, second unified edition, English vol.
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Birth  (BIRTH)


Demographic studies of fertility 1 deal with certain phenomena connected with human childbearing 2 or reproduction 2. The term natality 1 is sometimes used instead of fertility. These terms refer to the frequency of occurrence of births 3 or more specifically live births 4 — within populations and sub-populations. A birth is the process of delivering a child. Live births or the births of live-born children 5 are distinguished from late foetal deaths (cf. 411-5) by evidence of life, such as respiration, movement of voluntary muscles or heartbeat of the child after complete expulsion or extraction. The term effective fertility 6, which was once used to indicate that late foetal deaths were not counted among the total number of births, should refer to the cases in which the deaths of infants or children are excluded from consideration. The term total fertility 7 has on occasions been used to refer to live births and late foetal deaths combined. The term differential fertility 8 designates fertility differences between the subgroups of a population.

  • 1. On the meaning of the term fertility in demography, see also § 623.
  • 2. Reproduction, n. - reproduce, v. - reproductive, adj. Frequently, reproduction refers to the balance of births and deaths (as in § 711) rather than to the process of childbearing or procreation.
  • 3. The word birth is now commonly used to mean live birth.
  • 4. Live-born, adj. also used as noun to mean: infant born alive.

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