The Cultural Context of High Fertility in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Sub-Saharan Africa may offer greater resistance to fertility decline than any other world region as a result of a lineage-based traditional belief system. Traditional African religious values have sustained high fertility in 2 ways: 1stthey have acted directly to equate fertility with virtue and reproductive failure with sin and 2nd they have provided support for a system of upward flows of wealth. The African family structure generally places reproductive decision making in the hands of the husband and the economic burden for the support of children on the shoulders of the wife. Because of the weakness of the conjugal bond men tend not to realize the full burden of reproductive decisions. Thus reproductive decisions and behavior are only loosely related to the subsequent dependency burden. On the other hand there are signs of a destabilization of this high fertility system. At the individual level growing numbers of women in sub-Sahara Africa are facing economic difficulties and would like to take defensive action to limit births. At the national level there are recurrent problems with faltering economic growth and uncertain food supplies. Secular influences such as models of the family taught by the media and the schools may help make the conjugal family more dominant than homage to living ancestors. The demand for female contraceptive methods in sub-Sahara Africa is likely to grow. The pill and the IUD will probably be most employed but a demand for injectables and implants can be expected as well. However the authors predict that radical fertility declines should not be expected in sub-Saharan Africa during this century. In the absence of radical change in government attitudes toward family planning the crude birth rate is not likely to fall from its present level of 47/1000 to much less than 45/1000 by the year 2000.