Puberty and the family formation process in Sudan: age-at-menarche differential fecundity hypothesis revisited.

This paper revisits and extends an inquiry on the age-at-menarche differential fecundity hypothesis. Earlier studies have interpreted the difference in the onset of female pubertal maturation as indicative of biological differences in fecundity between early and late menarcheal women. Using the WFS data for Sudan, the authors address the entire reproductive life of the women in terms of their transition from one parity to the next, as well as the speed with which birth intervals are closed, as a way to infer biological fecundity among the women. The study concludes that there is little evidence that early menarcheal women are more fecund than their late puberty counterparts.