Marriage Patterns in Pakistan through Net Nuptiality Tables-1968 & 1971

In: The Pakistan development review: PDR, Band 14, Heft 2, S. 207-232

Abstract

In studying the processes which bring about changes in the
size and composi¬tion of a population, an appraisal of marriage patterns
is of special significance because the age and rate of marriage
formation relate directly'to changes in popu¬lation composition. In a
society like Pakistan where fertility takes place pre¬dominantly through
the formation of families by marriages, the frequency of mar¬riages at
different ages has direct bearing on the effective length of
reproductive period. Thus, for getting a proper insight into the
demographic phenomena, statistics on marriages are also of great
interest to demographers along with infor¬mation on fertility, mortality
and migration. Studies on frequencies of marriages by age, referred to
in the demographic terminology as nuptiality studies, are rather limited
in demographic literature, particularly in comparison with studies on
fertility and mortality. There are two obvious reasons for relatively
low priority given to this subject in spite of due re¬cognition of its
importance. Firstly, because of the rapid growth of population since the
turn of the century the role of fertility and mortality as direct
determinants of growth patterns has been much more significant. As a
result, the major interest of researchers has remained focused on the
vital events contributing to the natural increase, viz. births and
deaths. Secondly, a regular system of marriage registra¬tion is limited
to a few countries in the world, and in most of the other countries,
such information is either not available or if in some cases it is
available, no regular statistics are compiled out of them. The limited
availability of statistics on in¬cidence of marriage through vital
registration does not imply that information on marriage patterns is not
available from other sources. In fact much work has been done on the
basis of data on age distribution of population by marital status
provided by censuses or surveys.