Ideal versus actual: the contradiction in number of children born to Nigerian women

Although desired family size is often different from actual family size, the dynamics of this difference are not well understood. This paper examines the patterns and determinants of the difference between desired and actual number of children (unmet fertility desires) among women aged 15-49 years using pooled data from the 1990, 1999 and 2003 Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys (NDHSs). The results show that more than two-thirds of the sample have unmet fertility desires (18.1% have more while 52.4% have fewer than desired). It was found that early and late childbearing increased the odds of unmet fertility desires. Also, women with low levels of education, from poor households, rural residents as well as those who had experienced child death were at a higher risk of unmet fertility desires in the multivariate context. The study highlights the policy and programme implications of the findings.     

Differential fertility in the United States, 1980: continuity or change?

This paper considers how changes in women's sociocultural characteristics have influenced recent patterns of differential fertility in the US and whether the convergence of fertility differentials observed up to 1970 has continued. The data are drawn from the June 1980 US Current Population Survey, which is a probability sample survey selected to represent the civilian non-institutionalized population living in households. The study population consists of 20,621 ever-married White and Black women aged 25-44, a group for various reasons considered to have a high impact from the point of view of fertility behavior. Fertility to date and ever expected fertility are the dependent variables. The respondents were separated into age cohorts, and differentiated by race. The data suggest that there has been no change in differential fertility in recent years: the 2 youngest cohorts (25-29 and 30-34 years) have similar expected fertilities that are lower than those of the older cohorts. Age at 1st birth, length of 1st birth interval, income, and education were negatively associated with fertility, among both older and younger women, of both races. Differentials by race have narrowed slightly. When fertility expectations were examined, the association of the independent variables with expected completed fertility was weaker among younger women, indicating that there has been some convergence in expected fertility. Further narrowing of differentials in actual fertility depends on how successful the younger women are in preventing future unplanned births. If the present tendency towards surgical sterilization (among both races and groups above and below the poverty level) persists, it will make it possible for more women to stay within their expected total fertility levels.     

Protection afforded by sickle-cell trait (Hb AS): what happens when malarial selection pressures are alleviated?

A study of reproductive outcome in Mobile, AL was conducted among a large maternal cohort with sickle-cell disease (Hb SS), sickle-cell trait (Hb AS), and no hemoglobinopathies (Hb AA). It was found that mean gravidity and live births among Hb AS women were significantly higher than among Hb AA women. These findings were surprising since it is generally held that once malarial pressure is alleviated, any reproductive advantage that might be conferred by Hb AS would disappear and fertility levels would reach levels similar to or slightly less than that of Hb AA women. A search of the literature was subsequently conducted and a large cohort study of an African-derived population was found in the United Kingdom. Results from this study also showed that parity was significantly higher among Hb AS women compared to Hb AA women. If survivorship is similar among Hb AS and Hb SS women, findings from these two studies raise doubts whether directional selection is occurring against the Rb S allele in nonmalarial environments. Balancing selection may still be occurring.     

Fertility and race perception predict voter preference for Barack Obama

Research shows that women more positively evaluate targets evincing cues of high male genetic quality as a function of fertility across the menstrual cycle. Recently, a link between fertility and anti-black race bias has also been documented, an effect that is argued to serve a sexual coercion avoidance function. Here we demonstrate that both effects can be operative toward the same male target depending on inter-individual differences in race perception of the target. Across two studies, we found that the intention to vote for Barack Obama in the months preceding the 2008 election increased as a function of conception risk across the menstrual cycle. In the second study, we found that the effect is greatest among women who perceived him as more white than black, whereas the opposite was true among women who perceived him as mostly black. Our findings tie together separate conceptual research threads on positive and negative evaluations of men by women across the menstrual cycle — integrating them to shed light on women's voting preferences.     

Modernization and childlessness among the governorates of the Arab Republic of Egypt, 1976

This paper examines the degree to which childlessness is influenced by levels of modernization among the governorates of the Arab Republic of Egypt. The data have been derived mainly from the 1976 Population and Housing Census of the Arab Republic of Egypt. The childlessness rates used are based on census data on number of children born to married women. In 1976, the higher the levels of modernization, the lower the rates of childlessness among women aged 30 and over, and the higher the rates of childlessness among women aged 20-30. The lower rates are found in and around Cairo, and some of the governorates with higher rates are in Upper Egypt. Of the 25 governorates, Suez has the lowest childlessness rate. To some degree, the patterns of childlessness may be affected by changing patterns in age-specific 1st marriage rates. The childlessness rates for the younger women in the Egyptian governorates are associated with some of the modernization variables. The findings suggest that childlessness among women aged 30 and older is mostly involuntary, but that for younger women it is partly voluntary. Increases in modernization among the Egyptian governorates should, therfore, result in net increases in rates of childlessness and net decreases in fertility. There are at least 3 statistically independent sources of variation in modernization which characterize the governorates of Egypt: factors that reflect structural development, female status, and health personnel.     

Selection intensities in menopausal and permanent contraceptor women of a rural population in India

Changing fertility and mortality patterns due to socioeconomic forces have a profound effect on natural selection in human populations. The opportunity for selection was estimated in the rural population of Visakhapatnam District, Andra Pradesh, India, in 1979. A total of 1570 women were interviewed, 1544 among them had ever been pregnant. Data were analyzed to compute fertility and mortality components of the population. The index of total selection was found to be low. Selection in relation to birth control reveals that opportunity for selection is lower among women who completed their fertility by family planning methods than in women who completed their fertility by attaining menopause. Further, the results showed that differential fertility and mortality make equal contributions to the total measure of selection in both groups, whereas in developed countries like the US the mortality component contributes only a small fraction to the total index, due to improved health conditions.     

Ethnicity and fertility in Nigeria

Using a sample of Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, Ibo, and all other women from the 1990 Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey, this study examines ethnic fertility differentials in Nigeria within the context of the social characteristics and cultural hypotheses. Among all women, we find the net fertility of Hausa-Fulani women to be lower than that of Other women; with no statistically significant difference in the net fertility of Ibo, Yourba, and Other women. But, among currently married women, we find the net fertility of Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba women to be lower than that of Other women, while the net fertility of Ibo women is higher than that of Other women. Overall, the findings of this study are more consistent with the cultural hypothesis, because statistically significant fertility differentials by ethnicity remain, even after controlling for selected socioeconomic and demographic variables.     

Women's educational attainment and intergenerational patterns of fertility behaviour in Kenya

There is a strong theoretical and empirical relationship between educational attainment and fertility behaviour. However, a fundamental issue that has largely been neglected is the change in this relationship across cohorts resulting from differential improvement in educational opportunities for women over time and how it relates to fertility transition. Utilizing the 1998 DHS data from Kenya this study examines the differential effect of educational attainment on women's use of modern contraception and desire for cessation of childbearing across generations. The findings indicate that even after controlling for husband's education and other relevant factors, a woman's advanced education is positively associated with use of modern contraception. However, support for a similar hypothesis on a woman's desire for family limitation was only found among the youngest cohort of women. The results suggest that for Kenya's incipient fertility transition to be sustained the government needs to continue efforts to improve female education and support access to family planning among younger women.     

Socioecological aspects of human reproduction in Sub-Saharan Africa

The purpose of this study was to compare fertility outcome of two populations of northern Namibia, following different ways of subsistence. The total number of offspring, but also the number of dead and surviving offspring was compared between 236 !Kung San (91 females, 145 males) hunter gatherers and 248 Kavango (87 females, 161 males) horticultural pastoralists and a small number of Kavango people living in the urban center of Rundu. While no typical differences in fertility outcome between the study populations could be observed in males, marked differences were found for the female sample. As to be expected traditional Kavango women had given birth to a higher number of children and these children had a higher chance to survive in comparison to those of !Kung San women. On the other hand Kavango females living in urban centers reported a significantly lower number of offspring. It can be concluded that even in recent populations fertility differences according to subsistence patterns are observable.     

Correlates of breastfeeding frequency among nomadic pastoralists of Turkana,Kenya: A retrospective study

Recent research has shown that significant variation in breast-feeding behavior exists among natural fertility populations, all of whom have been characterized as practicing “on-demand” breastfeeding. A number of recent prospective studies have contributed to a better understanding of breastfeeding structure and of its consequences for population differences in fertility. Currently, there is a growing interest in quantifying the complex environmental and biocultural interactions which influence that structure; in other words, in establishing an ecology of breastfeeding. In this paper, a carefully structured retrospective study of breastfeeding behavior among nomadic Turkana is used to identify environmental, biobehavioral, and socioeconomic factors associated with variation in breastfeeding frequency among Turkana women. In agreement with the results of a prospective study conducted as part of the same research, the age (growth) and physical development of nurslings show significant correlations with breastfeeding frequency. Maternal physical status, the depth of the maternal social network, and, to a lesser degree, rainfall patterns are also significant. All of these factors appear to influence breastfeeding through their effects on maternal participation in herding activities and related absences from camp. Finally, the study also presents new strategies for collecting and utilizing retrospective data, which are notoriously unreliable and difficult to classify according to operational definitions recently developed for prospective studies. Results of the present study suggest methods by which the quality and reliability of recall data may be enhanced. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Female fertility affects men's linguistic choices

We examined the influence of female fertility on the likelihood of male participants aligning their choice of syntactic construction with those of female confederates. Men interacted with women throughout their menstrual cycle. On critical trials during the interaction, the confederate described a picture to the participant using particular syntactic constructions. Immediately thereafter, the participant described to the confederate a picture that could be described using either the same construction that was used by the confederate or an alternative form of the construction. Our data show that the likelihood of men choosing the same syntactic structure as the women was inversely related to the women's level of fertility: higher levels of fertility were associated with lower levels of linguistic matching. A follow-up study revealed that female participants do not show this same change in linguistic behavior as a function of changes in their conversation partner's fertility. We interpret these findings in the context of recent data suggesting that non-conforming behavior may be a means of men displaying their fitness as a mate to women.     

From Dust to Ashes: The Challenges of Difference

By attending to ways in which middle-class wives in Yogyakarta, Java, describe negotiating sentiments among family members (including children, maids and husbands), this article argues that domestic relations in middle-class homes in Java have been importantly inflected by state rhetoric on gender propriety and market ideas of work. As a result, both middle-class women and maids have come to conceive of emotion work as part of an array of domestic obligations central to social reproduction.     

‘They think of a family only in their thirties’: gendered subfertility and emergent intimate modernities in India

Recent anthropological scholarship on marriage in South Asia has chronicled a shift towards companionate marriage, with ideals of companionate conjugality becoming central to middle-class self-representations. However, the role of child-bearing and fertility within these marriages, as emerging life projects related to new family ideals, has not received much attention, even as literature on India has recorded extensive family concern with fertility. In this article, I focus on the endocrine disorder polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) – one of the leading causes of female infertility world-wide – to examine emerging conceptions of fertility and intimate modernities among the urban middle class in India. I argue that a comparatively limited concern with fertility forms a part of this class's self-representations and practices of distinction. Such attitudes to fertility, enabled by new orientations towards medical risk and ideals of companionate marriage, also function as markers of the emerging ‘modern’ subjectivity of this class.     

A causal approach to the study of fertility and familism

This paper tests, within the framework of LISREL, the causal structures of fertility using data from the 1973-74 Growth of Alberta Family Study (GAFS) of women aged 18-44 who are currently married or living common-law. Differential fertility among two groups of women classified by nativity also are examined. The women's background characteristics (e.g., age, religiosity, and education) are viewed as exogenous variables. The endogenous variables are familism and expected family size; familism is designated as an intermediate variable in the model, linking demographic and socioeconomic (including cultural) factors to fertility, The results indicate that familism acts as an important variable explaining fertility, particularly, among foreign-born women. The study confirms and extends earlier research findings that religiosity and education influence couples' fertility, the former positively and the latter negatively.     

Teenage childbearing as an alternative life-course strategy in multigeneration black families

This paper summarizes the findings of a three-year exploratory qualitative study of teenage childbearing in 20 low-income multigeneration black families. Teenage childbearing in these families is part of an alternative life-course strategy created in response to socioenvironmental constraints. This alternative life-course strategy is characterized by an accelerated family timetable; the separation of reproduction and marriage; an age-condensed generational family structure; and a grandparental child-rearing system. The implications of these patterns for intergenerational family roles are discussed. The research described in this paper was funded in part by the National Science Foundation (RII-8613960) and the Center for the Study of Child and Adolescent Development, Pennsylvania State University. This paper was partially completed while the author was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Linda Burton is an Assistant Professor of Human Development in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Pennsylvania State University. She was recently a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, where she studied the impact of teenage childbearing on the life course of older women. Her current research examines the effects of adolescent pregnancy on intergenerational family structure and function among blacks in three socioeconomic groups—persistent poor, transient poor, and working/middle-class.     

Hunter-gatherer energetics and fertility: A reassessment of the !Kung San

This paper examines the question of why the total fertility rate of the !Kung San hunter-gatherers of the Northern Kalahari desert is as low as 4.69 births. When the intermediate variables involved are examined through the employment of a reproductive equation, it becomes clear that low fecundity is a major issue. Arguments offered previously to explain the low fertility of !Kung women, depending on factors such as nutrition, health status, and lactational practices are insufficient. Drawing upon recent data from sports medicine and endocrinology, I suggest that the pattern of San female energetics in their gathering and subsistence routine has a direct effect upon their fecundity. Such a correlation between activity patterns, endocrine function, and reproductive capacity may also be important for understanding the fertility of other mobile hunter-gatherer groups.     

Psychosocial stress in pregnancy and its relation to the onset of premature labour.

A modified life events inventory was presented over a four-month period to 132 consecutive women going into spontaneous labour in Hull and Manchester. Three study groups were identified according to the duration of pregnancy. The levels of psychosocial stress in pregnancy were found to be particularly high in the mothers whose babies were born preterm. Stressful events may precipitate preterm labour in some women. The concept of antenatal care may have to be broadened if the incidence of premature labour and resulting perinatal mortality are to be reduced.     

How does variance in fertility change over the demographic transition?

Most work on the human fertility transition has focused on declines in mean fertility. However, understanding changes in the variance of reproductive outcomes can be equally important for evolutionary questions about the heritability of fertility, individual determinants of fertility and changing patterns of reproductive skew. Here, we document how variance in completed fertility among women (45–49 years) differs across 200 surveys in 72 low- to middle-income countries where fertility transitions are currently in progress at various stages. Nearly all (91%) of samples exhibit variance consistent with a Poisson process of fertility, which places systematic, and often severe, theoretical upper bounds on the proportion of variance that can be attributed to individual differences. In contrast to the pattern of total variance, these upper bounds increase from high- to mid-fertility samples, then decline again as samples move from mid to low fertility. Notably, the lowest fertility samples often deviate from a Poisson process. This suggests that as populations move to low fertility their reproduction shifts from a rate-based process to a focus on an ideal number of children. We discuss the implications of these findings for predicting completed fertility from individual-level variables.     

Variation and change in fertility in West Central Nepal

This article employs temporal and intracultural frames of reference to examine patterns of variation in fertility among the caste-Hindus of West Central Nepal. Before the onset of major socioeconomic development in the region, three groups, the large-farm high castes, the small-farm high castes, and the low castes, exhibited distinct patterns of reproductive behavior which have been traced over the course of 25 years. Analysis of age-specific fertility rates suggests that one group, the small farm high-caste, maintained relatively low fertility before major development of the region occurred, and, over time, began using modern contraception in order to keep fertility low. Evidence from the low castes suggests that they are beginning deliberately to reduce fertility, but the large-farm high castes continue to have high fertility.     

Ethnicity and fertility in Liberia: A test of the minority group status hypothesis

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between ethnicity and fertility in Liberia, within the context of the minority group status hypothesis. The hypothesis argues that minority group status exerts an independent effect on fertility, net of controls for socioeconomic and demographic variables. Using a subsample of women from the 1974 Liberian census, the study examines interethnic variations in fertility by comparing five ethnic minorities—Bassa, Vai, Grebo, Kru, Kpelle—with the majority group, Americo‐Liberian. With the possible exception of Bassa women, the findings do not support the minority group status hypothesis. Instead, the findings are more congruent with the alternative assimilationist hypothesis which argues that when sociodemographic differences between majority and minority groups are controlled, their fertility levels should converge. The implications of these findings are explored.