Title: [Modifications of costs and benefits of children supported by parents: socio-economic differentiation and its impact on fertility. Evolution of fertility and the role of children in rural West Africa]

POPLINE Document Number: 074161

Author(s):

Vimard P
Guillaume A
Quesnel A

Source citation:

[Unpublished] 1991. Presented at the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population [IUSSP] Committee on Comparative Analysis of Fertility and University of Zimbabwe Seminar on the Course of Fertility Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe, 19-22 November 1991. 27 p.

Abstract:

The displacement of control over reproduction from the lineage to the family, the spread of school attendance, and other socioeconomic changes among rural populations in West Africa appear to have had little effect thus far on aggregate fertility rates. This work examines the interrelations between fertility and social and economic changes in rural African groups involved in agricultural production for the market. The work 1st assesses the socioeconomic context of fertility in plantation economies of sub-Saharan Africa, discussing the traditional economic role of children in agricultural production and old age security and clan and lineage control over the family as well as the profound changes introduced by the increasing autonomy of the domestic group in production and reproduction and the increase in school attendance. Separate discussions of each group explore fertility trends and the attitudes and motivations related to them and assess the emergence of new constraints and new demographic ideas resulting from development of new strategies of reproduction. Special consideration is given to the role of school attendance, which has altered the place of children in society and the costs and benefits associated with them. School attendance initially may be favorable to large family sizes as it allows educated children to migrate to the city and establish the family in the modern sphere, but as employment becomes scarce and the labor market saturated, the high costs of maintaining and educating children may begin to encourage fertility limitation. Finally, the effects of economic crises in plantation systems and of structural adjustment programs on rural families are evaluated. The cases of the Ewe and Kabye of the Dayes Plateau in southwest Togo, the Akye of the southeast Ivory Coast, and the inhabitants of the Sassandra region of western Ivory Coast demonstrates the diversity of fertility trends in relation to the costs of children and the immediate and longterm benefits expected from them. The relationship is not uniform, because strong natalist attitudes can correspond either to strategies directed toward simple reproduction of the agrarian society as in the case of the Kabye and the populations of the Sassandra, or to expansion into the urban and national spheres as in the case of Ewe and Akye during their period of economic growth. But recently the economic crisis, which has tended to increase the relative costs of children, has created pressure to lower fertility as can be seen among the Ewe and more recently the Akye.

Keywords:

Africa, Sub Saharan
Child Worth
Intergenerational Transfers
Microeconomic Factors
Fertility Determinants
Agricultural Workers
School Enrollment
Educational Status
Social Change
Socioeconomic Factors
Africa
Developing Countries
Economic Factors
Fertility
Population Dynamics
Demographic Factors
Population
Labor Force
Human Resources
Socioeconomic Status