ABSTRACT
This paper concentrates on some issues relating to the recent fertility decline in Sri Lanka. 1 Several studies have attributed this decline to changes in the marital structure and to a lesser extent to changes in marital fertility [ Fernando, 1972; 1975; Berera, 1974 ] . While agreeing with their demographic indicators, this paper will attempt to highlight certain socio-economic factors underlying the fertility decline, on the basis of household data collected from a village, Aluthgama, in Sri Lanka. Further, it will concentrate on the commonly advanced hypothesis that the development of social and cultural differentiation in village communities will affect fertility values and behaviour. Thus one may expect variation in ideas about the value of children, family size norms, age of women at marriage and use of birth control in different socio-economic status groups in the village of less developed countries [Ajami, 1976].
