The determinants of family size preferences and traditional child spacing practices in West Africa.

Recent demographic evidence for sub-Saharan Africa shows that the absence of a demand for small family sizes is the major barrier to a fertility decline in the region. Other evidence shows that the traditional child-spacing practices of breast-feeding and postpartum abstinence are the most important determinants of the levels and differentials in fertility in sub-Saharan Africa. This dissertation examined the determinants of family size preferences and traditional child-spacing practices in West Africa with multilevel analytic techniques that combined information about the socioeconomic status and demographic characteristics of individuals and the cultural and institutional characteristics of their ethnic groups. The data came from the World fertility surveys conducted during the late 1970s in Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Cameroon and from ethnographic descriptions of ethnic groups in those countries. The major conclusion of the analysis is that family size preferences and traditional child-spacing practices are related in different ways to social change. The determinants of family size preferences reflect intergenerational and gender inequalities in the access to social and economic resources while economic modernization is the most important determinant of traditional child-spacing practices. This evidence suggests that the traditional child-spacing practices are likely to be relatively more responsive to social change than family size preferences. There is strong likelihood of an increase in fertility with social change in the sub-Saharan African region.Ph.D.DemographyIndividual and family studiesSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/128485/2/9023517.pd