Reproduction and Social Organization in Sub-Saharan AfricaRon J. Lesthaeghe Unlike most Asian and Latin American countries, sub-Saharan Africa has seen both an increase in population growth rates and a weakening of traditional patterns of child-spacing since the 1960s. It is tempting to conclude that sub-Saharan countries have simply not reached adequate levels of income, education, and urbanization for a fertility decline to occur. This book argues, however, that such a socioeconomic threshold hypothesis will not provide an adequate basis for comparison. These authors take the view that any reproductive regime is also anchored to a broader pattern of social organization, including the prevailing modes of production, rules of exchange, patterns of religious systems, kinship structure, division of labor, and gender roles. They link the characteristic features of the African reproductive regime with regard to nuptiality, polygyny, breastfeeding, postpartum abstinence, sterility, and child-fostering to other specifically African characteristics of social organization and culture. Substantial attention is paid to the heterogeneity that prevails among sub-Saharan societies and considerable use is made, therefore, of interethnic comparisons. As a result the book goes considerably beyond mere demographic description and builds bridges between demography and anthropology or sociology. |
Contents
General Connections between Social Organization | 15 |
Caveats Variations and Additional Dimensions | 29 |
Conclusions | 51 |
The Components of SubSaharan Reproductive Regimes and Their Social | 60 |
Conclusions | 116 |
The Role of Womens | 122 |
The Components of the Overall Postpartum Nonsusceptible | 132 |
Are Educational Effects within Regions Related to Contextual | 151 |
Regional Patterns of Nuptiality and Polygyny | 263 |
The Construction of an Ethnic Nuptiality and Social Structure | 293 |
Polygyny and Fertility in SubSaharan Africa | 338 |
Multivariate Results | 350 |
Ivory Coast | 356 |
Labor Circulation Marriage and Fertility in Southern Africa | 365 |
The Marriage Systems of Botswana and Lesotho | 372 |
Marital Status and Fertility | 381 |
V | 158 |
Conclusions | 161 |
A Comparative Study of the Levels and the Differentials of Sterility | 167 |
The Levels of Sterility in Cameroon Kenya and Sudan | 178 |
Conclusions | 206 |
The Demography of Polygyny in SubSaharan Africa | 212 |
Results | 220 |
Conclusions | 231 |
The Nuptiality Regimes in SubSahara Africa | 238 |
Additional Notes on the Formal Demography of Polygyny | 252 |
Modern Methods of Fertility Control | 388 |
Coresidence of Mother and Child | 401 |
Data | 407 |
The Prevalence of Nonmaternal Residence | 413 |
Social Organization and the Prevalence of Nonmaternal | 421 |
Conclusions | 436 |
Minding Children in order to Acquire Resources from | 465 |
Social Organization Economic Crises and the Future of Fertility Control | 475 |
| 537 | |
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Common terms and phrases
age difference age group ages at marriage analysis areas associated Bamileke Benin birth Botswana breastfeeding bridewealth Cameroon Central child child-spacing cluster coefficients contraception correlation countries cousin marriage covariates cultural demographic Development Score differentials direct effect diverging devolution divorced Douala economic endogamy estimated ethnic groups ever-married women factor family planning fosterage Ghana grannies household husbands illit illiterate women indicators Islam Ivory Coast junior cowives Kenya labor Lesotho Lesthaeghe lineage male matrilineal mean duration migration Mijikenda monogamous months mortality mother Muslim Nigeria nonsusceptible period NS NS NS older overall parents pattern percent polygynous marriages polygyny populations postpartum abstinence postpartum nonsusceptibility premarital prevalence proportions single regions relative remarriage reproductive regime residence rural sample Senegal sexual SMAM difference social organization societies socioeconomic development statistical sterility stratification sub-Saharan Africa Sudan Tanzania tion Traditional Religion urban values variables West Africa widowed wives Women in Trade Yrs of Schooling