International Population Conference 2017, Cape Town, South Africa - PDF document

1 International Population Conference 2017, Cape Town, South Africa Session 707 Perspectives on fertility transitions Fertility transition in sub-Saharan Africa: A view using parity progression ratios Mathias Lerch Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany lerch@demogr.mpg.de Thomas Spoorenberg 1 United Nations Population Division, New York, USA thomas.spoorenberg@gmail.com Abstract Fertility decline in sub-Saharan Africa was slow and diverged significantly by country. When compared to past experiences in Asia and Latin America, the pattern of decline also seems to be distinct as birth postponement played a major role. We propose a parity-specific perspective of the fertility transitions in 26 countries to identify regularities in the underlying behavioral changes with a focus on the interplay between birth postponement and birth limitation (i.e. the stopping of childbearing). Using multiple World Fertility Surveys and Demographic and Health Surveys, we analyze synthetic parity progression ratios, the singulate mean age at first birth and average birth intervals, as well as the observed and tempo-adjusted levels of total fertility between 1965 and 2010. While early declines in fertility were driven by birth postponement at all parities, we observe a recent onset of family limitation in countries that are most advanced in the fertility transition. Sub-Saharan Africa may thus experience a particular type of transition, in which all parities contribute from the outset, and in which the temporal sequencing of stopping and postponement behaviors is inversed when compared to other world regions. 1 The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.

2 Background and objectives The fertility decline in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) was late and non-monotonic when compared to other developing regions. The drop in the total fertility rate (TFR) started in the 1970s to 1980s, slowed down in the 1990s and resumed since the 2000s. Although all countries experienced at least some decline, the onset and pace of this trend varied substantially (Garenne 2008). In 2010-2015, SSA still has the highest TFR in worldwide comparison (5 children per woman on average) (United Nations 2017), and there is much uncertainty about the future course of the transitions (Gerland et al. 2017; Schoumaker 2017). We aim at identifying regularities in the national patterns of fertility change over the course of the transition in order to help informing future developments. Covering the period between 1965 and 2010 in 26 countries, we analyze fertility according to wome n’s number of previous births (i.e. parity). This helps to better identify trends in both birth postponement and birth limitation (i.e. the stopping of childbearing). While doing so, we also would like to contribute to the discussion about the exceptionalism of the fertility transition in sub-Saharan African. When compared to past experiences in Asia and Latin America, fertility decline in SSA began at lower levels of economic development and progressed at a slower pace, mirroring the slower change in socioeconomic structures as well as a pro-natalist culture (Bongaarts 2017). Corroborating the predictive conjecture made by Caldwell et al. (1992), the pattern of fertility decline also seems to be distinct. As total fertility dropped, the age-distribution of fertility remained constant. Instead of a classic pattern of family limitation, in which women stop childbearing at progressively lower parities as the fertility transition progresses (Henry 1952), the sub-Saharan Africa pattern has been argued to be mainly driven by birth postponement (Johnson-Hanks 2007; Timaeus and Moultrie 2008; Moultrie et al. 2012). Marriages have been deferred to higher ages from the very start of the fertility transition (Shapiro and Gebreselassie 2014; Hertrich 2017) and all birth intervals have lengthened substantially (Johnson-Hanks 2007; Timaeus and Moultrie 2008; Casterline and Odden 2016). The idea of a target number of children, as well as the intentional stopping of childbearing once this target is achieved, was not part of the pre-transitional cultural repertoire of SSA (van de Walle 1992). The reproductive regime aimed at reproducing the lineage group in a context of high mortality by promoting motherhood through its association with high spiritual and social standing. T o protect women’s body from health issues and improve the chances of survival of the youngest child, the reproductive careers have been

3 traditionally characterized by long periods of postpartum insusceptibility (Caldwell and Caldwell 1987; Bledsoe et al. 1998). Birth intervals further lengthened in a context of increasing economic uncertainty (Johnson-Hanks 2007). African fertility transition appears to be essentially determined by postponement of family events. However, recent studies challenge this African exceptionalism. Similar to the experiences in Asia and Latin America, relative fertility decline was more important at higher ages and correlated with the drop in ideal family size (Bongaarts and Casterline 2013). Women are increasingly willing to stop childbearing, especially since 2000 and among higher parities (Casterline and Agyei-Mensah 2017). When compared to experiences in other developing regions, however, fertility preferences are higher in SSA and their decline did not translate in comparable drops in the TFR. The unwanted fertility rate stayed constant over the last 20 years (Günther and Harttgen 2016) because the level of unmet need for contraception is the highest in world-wide comparison. The main difference of sub-Saharan Africa thus lies in the slower diffusion of modern contraceptives, although the trend is upward in all countries (Tsui et al. 2017). Yet in countries with the strongest increase in the prevalence of modern contraceptives (i.e. Southern and Eastern Africa), the purpose of unmet need changed from birth spacing towards the stopping of childbearing (Lesthaeghe 2014). Given this indirect evidence for family limitation in SSA, an analysis of fertility trends by parity is timely. Two previous international inter-cohort comparisons revealed a timid decline in higher order births (after the 5th or 6th birth; Brass et al. 1997; Alter 2016). In the early 1990s, only Zimbabwe, Namibia, Ghana and Kenya had a period parity progression ratio to the sixth birth below 80% after five years of occurrence since the fifth birth (Mboup and Saha 1998). Yet it remains unclear to what extent these slow declines in parity progressions have been driven by birth limitation. Birth postponement also temporarily depresses period measures of fertility (Bongaarts & Feeney 1998). We address this question by documenting the quantum and tempo of fertility decline in SSA. We assess the trend in postponement and investigate whether fertility limitation started to spread across the region and parity groups according to a classic model, from higher to lower parities over time (Henry 1952). Data and method We describe fertility trends between 1965 and 2010 in 26 countries, using data from 113 World Fertility Surveys (WFS) and Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) (see the list in