The Empirical Investigation of Fertility Transition in Pakistan: Assessing the Role of Education, Family Planning and Women Empowerment (Using ARDL Approach)

The purpose of this paper is to assess the role of education, family planning and women empowerment to determine their effects on total fertility rate in case of Pakistan because total fertility rate is higher as compare with other developing countries and the declining trend is slow despite of taking many steps by the government. This study based on the empirical examination to observe the relationship among concern variables. The data of concern variables have been taken from statistical year book of Pakistan and federal bureau of statistics of Pakistan, time span from 1975 to 2013. Autoregressive and distributive lag model (ARDL) is applied to extract the relationship among variables (total fertility rate, child mortality rate, female labor force participation, real growth rate, female secondary ratio and contraceptive prevalence). Results of the study confirm the long run and short run association among variables. Error correction model identify that the speed of adjustment is moderate to attain the equilibrium condition. Keywords: total fertility rate, female education, life expectancy at birth, per capita incom