Maternal mortality data is scarcely available in developing countries. It is hard to estimate maternal mortality rates as this necessitates huge sample size. Hence an indirect method to understand the maternal mortality is to look into the age-specific mortality rates of females in the reproductive age groups. This study is an attempt in this direction.

The gender differentials and rural-urban differentials have narrowed down considerably over the period from 1970. On the whole, the rural-urban differences over this period seems to be much larger than the gender differentials so that the rural females still suffer from the double disadvantage of being a female and belong to rural areas.

Of the correlates we considered all the three, viz., total fertility rate, safe motherhood indices and health care supply are strongly correlated with female mortality especially in the 15-29 age group. What is significant is even these variables are strongly correlated within themselves. For instance, in states like Kerala and Punjab where health care provision is good, the variables relating to ANC are also satisfactorily high and fertility levels correspondingly low. In contrasts in states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh all these indicators have been poor.