A study of fertility in the Maltese Islands

Abstract

This thesis concentrates solely on the study of fertility. The main aim is to investigate in detail how the number of births is changing from year to year, and to identify and examine any patterns that may be present. Only female births are considered, since it is primarily the females who are concerned with the continuation of the population. The first approach is an analysis by means of rates and ratios. Many different rates exist for fertility. The simplest of these is the crude birth rate, which is defined as the number of births in any given year divided by the total population of that year. After a look at the abovementioned rates and ratios, the next topic is the deterministic models of population growth. Deterministic models of population growth can be built in two ways, either continuously or discretely. Discrete models are generally preferred, and the best-known discrete model is the one described by P. H. Leslie in 1945. It is this Leslie matrix method that will be adopted. The Stable Age distribution is also touched upon in this section. The final approach is the creation of a suitable model involving the age-specific fertility rates using data available from 1960 to 1999. After the model is estimated and the unknown parameters calculated, the last stage is to analyse the way these parameters vary over time. This is done by means of a time series analysis.