Relationships Between UK Sub-national Trends in Infant Mortality and Fertility

This chapter aims to add to our understanding of the relationship between different demographic components since trajectories over time combine to affect changes in population size. Clarifying whether changes in infant mortality rates relate geographically with changes in fertility rates will inform both the early life mortality and fertility rate assumptions of projection models and the survival of live births through the first year of life. The chapter reviews the findings of a previous study on timing and patterns of sub-national variations in infant mortality trends (as child mortality) in relation to fertility trends in England and Wales during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Then, more recent trends are investigated for 1981–2006 with the study area extended to cover the whole of the United Kingdom. Regression models are developed to determine socio-demographic influences on infant mortality and fertility rates. Finally, a classification is developed to highlight whether groups of areas have similar trends in infant mortality and fertility rates.