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Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa (1993)

Chapter: 4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context

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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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Suggested Citation:"4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context." National Research Council. 1993. Factors Affecting Contraceptive Use in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2209.
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4 The Household, Kinship, and Community Context This chapter considers whether long-standing forms of African social organization will continue to inhibit contraceptive adoption and support high fertility. There can be little doubt as to the pronatalist past: Evidence from a wide range of African countries suggests that social institutions and shared values have supported high fertility well into the postcolonial era. What is under debate is the prospect for change. Are the past structures so deeply embedded and immutable that high fertility will persist? Is Africa indeed so unique with respect to social organization, and so different from the remainder of the developing world where fertility decline is in progress? Or might pronatalist values and constraints give way in the face of new socioeconomic pressures, as they have elsewhere? Much of the demographic literature, as exemplified by the writings of Caldwell (1991; Caldwell and Caldwell, 1987, 1988, 1990; Caldwell et al., 1989, 1991), Goody (1990), Frank (1987, 1988; Frank and McNicoll, 1987), Lesthaeghe (1989b), and Page (1989), has emphasized the probable conti- nuity of pronatalist forms of social organization. African productive and reproductive systems are described in terms of functional coherence and internal logic; high fertility is seen as an essential building block in this larger edifice. Implicit in such a perspective is the view that, absent some sweeping system-wide transformation, one should not expect modern sub- Saharan Africa to join in the fertility declines in progress elsewhere in the developing world. The very persistence of high fertility in the region is cited as testimony 85

86 FA CTORS AFFECTING CONTRA CEPTIVE USE to the perseverance of pronatalist values. Yet as Chapter 3 has indicated, this aspect of the empirical record can be given a rather different interp~reta- tion. Persistent high fertility in Africa may well reflect the persistent high mortality characteristic of the region, its low levels of industrialization, the comparatively weak economic returns to schooling, the belated evolution of population policy, and the still-sporadic coverage of family planning pro- grams. In this alternative view, the absence of fertility decline across the continent is evidence not so much of deep-seated cultural resistance, as of the continued unevenness and superficiality of economic and political de- velopment. The recent surges in contraceptive adoption in Botswana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe testify to the profound influence of new socioeconomic forces associated with modernization; where similar forces prevail elsewhere in Africa, it is argued (see Chapter 3), fertility decline will follow. What is really at issue in these competing perspectives, therefore, is the degree of adaptability to be expected of African social organizations and cultures. There is a growing recognition in the literature that the African demographic situation is now in flux. As many of the authors cited above acknowledge, the changing economic circumstances of the 1980s and the gradual westernization of certain aspects of family life may have unsettled the past high-fertility regime (e.g., Caldwell and Caldwell, 1987; Lesthaeghe, 1989a; Caldwell et al., 1992~. Some observers detect a growing detachment of these older values from day-to-day behavior and note the potential for rapid change. For example, with reference to Kenya, Robinson (1992:454) asserts that cultural beliefs often "persist as ideals or values which become more and more divorced from practice until they end up being dropped or becoming meaningless rules like 'love the neighbor'." He cautions. , , ~ Establishing that traditional Kenyan culture and custom was supportive of high fertility in no way establishes how strongly held are these practices today or how quickly they may change as the socio-economic basis of the real day-to-day society changes. Culture and values are adaptive .... The task in what follows is to weigh the evidence regarding continuity and change. We view three broad areas of family and kinship organization as essential to an understanding of fertility decision making in Africa: lineages and systems of descent; kinship networks and child fostering; and the nature of conjugal bonds. In each of these areas, African social organization has been uniquely pronatalist or, at the least, strikingly different in degree from that prevailing elsewhere. No doubt in the past these forms of social organization provided a powerful rationale for high fertility, but as our examination shows, that rationale is no longer wholly intact. .

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 87 Much of the evidence brought to bear on these matters is ethnographic in nature, and the record is regrettably thin for the 1980s a decade of social and economic turmoil in many African countries, which saw the beginnings of fertility decline in Botswana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. A1- though the empirical base cannot support strong conclusions, we find nu- merous indications of a desire for moderate levels of fertility among certain socioeconomic groups and hints of a broader receptivity to change. We conclude that the long-standing supports for high fertility, although still strong across much of the continent, may no longer prevent fertility decline. We then ask whether existing forms of social organization at the level of the local community might facilitate fertility decline. That is, in what way might African local voluntary associations, on the one hand, and local government organizations, on the other, serve as conduits for information about modern contraceptive methods or even as providers of such methods? To put it differently, what aspects of local social organization might assist in the diffusion of family planning information and services? Such ques- tions, first advanced for Africa by Lesthaeghe (1989a) and recently taken up by Watkins (1991) and Hammerslough (1991a), are of special relevance for policy in an era of macroeconomic austerity, when African central gov- ernments may have little alternative but to rely on a network of nongovern- mental organizations and the private sector to extend family planning ser- vice delivery. THE HIGH-FERTILITY RATIONALE: AN OVERVIEW The case for the uniqueness of African high-fertility regimes is based on several interrelated points. Each point is said to be more characteristic of historical than modern African social systems, but each, nonetheless, is viewed as being persistent in influence and still potent in affecting repro- ductive decisions. The relevant factors include · the importance accorded to descent and perpetuation of the lineage; · the economic value inherent in children, not only as sources of labor, but also as a means of securing access to land and other resources; · the implications of a lineage orientation for the bond between wives and husbands, and the degree to which the boundaries of the conjugal household are penetrated by other kin; · the availability of mechanisms for sharing child costs and benefits among kin, principally through child fostering; and · the special interests of women in the maintenance of high fertility. For example, a 1987 article by Caldwell and Caldwell argued that Afri- can societies have historically given great emphasis to perpetuation of the lineage. High fertility is the logical consequence if a family line is to be

88 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE maintained in the face of high mortality risks. In this perspective, repro- duction becomes a matter of concern not only for the individual couple involved, but also for a wider network of kin, and the duty to ensure lineage survival assumes something of the character of a religious obligation. Labor, rather than physical or human capital, was the principal eco- nom~c resource in historical African settings) and the economic benefits of high fertility remain significant in what are still predominantly agricultural economies with few sources of savings, insurance, and economic security other than those derived from kin. Moreover, it was through control of labor that individuals laid claim to the other important agricultural resource, land. Land was itself held by corporate groups such as lineages, rather than being privately owned, and was allocated by the lineage to households who possess the requisite labor to establish and maintain use rights. Where descent is patr~lineal, as it is in much of sub-Saharan Africa, the husband's lineage secures rights to the reproduction of the wife through the device of bnde-price. The bonds linking husband and wife in marriage are weak in relation to the claims on spouses asserted by their respective lin- eages; the marriage bond is further undefined by the presence of co-wives and by high rates of widowhood and divorce. Within marriage the wife and husband shoulder different economic responsibilities for childrearing and may therefore assess the overall level of child costs rather differently. And the costs of high fertility need not be borne by the conjugal household alone but can be shared, through child fostering, among kin and even nonkin. In such settings, women may find benefits in high fertility that are distinct from the benefits enjoyed by men. In particular, high fertility may help women secure for themselves continued access to economic resources. Childbeanng provides women with one avenue to the resources held by their husbands or other men; it may help to fend off the competing claims of actual or potential co-wives; and following marriage dissolution, children may constitute a woman's only means of access to the household resources jointly produced by her husband and herself within the marriage (Bledsoe, l990b). A widow's claims on household resources via inheritance are se- verely circumscribed throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and often her only path to such resources runs indirectly through her children (see, among Menu (1984:5) writes that "the key measure of a man's wealth was the number of depen- dents in his household. The association of wealth with persons rather than with material goods is explained by the conditions of production. Unlike many other world areas, labor not land was the scarce factor of production in Africa. A man's ability to expand his control over land and his production of food and livestock depended crucially on the number of dependent men in his household and on the number of women farmers whose agricultural and domestic labor he could mobilize."

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 89 others, Ladipo, 1987~. Because both widowhood and divorce are common (the former being due to the wide age gap between spouses characteristic of polygynous societies), women must anticipate an extended period of eco- nomic reliance on their children. If one takes a long historical perspective (Goody, 1976, 1990), these factors might be traced back in time to a few fundamental and enduring material elements characteristic of the sub-Saharan region: historically high mortality; a general lack of good soil that repays intensive cultivation; a general abundance of (adequate) land in relation to labor, so that in a sense labor becomes the more valued resource; and a great instability in income, giving rise to a need for kin and other social contacts to serve as networks of mutual insurance.2 This depiction is an essentially functionalist view of Afncan social organization. The critical examination to follow uncovers in this view numerous elements of caricature and instances of overgeneralization (Messina, 1992~. Nevertheless, the perspective outlined above has much to recom- mend about it. It is especially important to appreciate the nature of its challenge to the usual conceptual models of fertility decision making employed in demography, wherein the conjugal couple is viewed as the primary locus of reproductive decisions. The demographer's notion of the conjugal household, with its pooled resources and shared responsibilities, is very much at odds with the portrait of the African household sketched above. This theoretical emphasis on the conjugal household, which has shaped demographic data gathering and interpretation, is wholly inappropriate to sub-Saharan Africa. A review of the ethnographic record confirms that African households are internally divided (along cleavages of age as well as gender) and participate in a network of economic relations with kin that put into doubt the economic demographer's notion of a simple household budget constraint. To anticipate much of the argument to follow, we can state more pre- cisely here the limitations of the conventional economic model as regards Afncan family structure and decision making. To describe adequately the Afncan situation, the conventional macroeconomic household budget con- stra~nt would have to be amended in several fundamental ways. 1. The possibilities of transferring resources from one life-cycle pe- nod to another are severely 'constrained by the absence or limited penetra 20n the issue of insurance networks, Guyer (1981) cites Lewis (1978) to the effect that in Mali, families incorporated in large patrilineal groups can exhibit greater variability in food production per capita, by comparison with more isolated families who must more closely match their production to subsistence needs.

9o FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE lion of formal financial institutions. Thus, liquidity constraints are an es- sential feature of the intertemporal budget constraint. 2. One must recognize the possibility of transfers to and from other kin, both in the budget constraint and in the function describing intertemporal utility. Indeed, the notion of transfers among kin must include transfers between husband and wife; as noted later, sub-Saharan husbands and wives have distinct economic responsibilities and interests with regard to childrearing and resource allocation issues more generally. To suppose that the interests of husband and wife can be merged in a single utility function maximized subject to a common budget constraint, is to apprehend the situation badly. The term "transfer" is itself inadequate, because it does not fully con- vey the sense of mutual and reciprocal obligation involved in resource flows among kin. One receives assistance but in so doing incurs an obligation to reciprocate in the future; thus a transfer can be viewed as akin to borrow- ing, with the terms of repayment left vague and perhaps dependent on fu- ture circumstances. The lender may in turn derive positive utility from the act of lending, since being able to lend enhances one's standing within the kin group. Not lending, when one is in fact able to lend, threatens the system of mutual obligations and may incur severe social sanctions. The network of kin among whom transfers take place is a dynamic configuration. It changes with time, as the elders to whom one owes sup- port die, and the children, in whom one has inculcated an obligation, come of age. 3. Another necessary amendment to the conceptualization of the bud- get constraint is that transfers and bargaining within marriage may take place in a polygynous setting, where norms of fairness and equality across wives place constraints on the manner in which a husband can allocate his resources among his wives and children (Fapohunda and Todaro, 1988; Bledsoe, in press). 4. It is necessary to incorporate the uncertainty in individual access to a given spouse's resources that arises from marital dissolution and remar- riage. In particular, a wife's claims on her husband's resources may be only temporary and superficial unless she can lay down a basis for long- term claims by having children with him. 5. Owing to the material conditions surrounding agricultural produc- tion and the present weaknesses of industrial development, all incomes are subject to considerable uncertainty. Given the limited possibilities for indi- vidual savings, this uncertainty accentuates the need for a wide network of social contacts and contingent claims, many of which are established through children. On the whole we would agree with Page (1989:402), who writes that "one can question the extent to which one can even speak of a husband

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 91 wife-child unit since neither economic nor kinship links are traditionally thus defined." African family structures, in which conjugal units are at once internally subdivided and permeable from the outside, may demand both a new conceptual model for demographers and new routes for effective policy intervention. LINEAGE AND DESCENT As outlined above, matters of descent and lineage are central both to African social organization and to the rationale for high fertility, and much of the ethnographic literature on sub-Saharan cultures has been in agree- ment. For instance, Bleek (1987:139) writes for the Akan of Ghana that "the lineage is the great, permanent and fundamental institution which per- meates every aspect of life." Yet there is an important dissenting perspec- tive, summarized by Kuper (1982a,b), in which the concept of lineage is seen not so much as a fundamental organizing principle, but rather as one among a great number of elements that make up social organization and shape individual identity. In this alternative view, the religious, social, and economic importance attached to the lineage is highly variable both across and within societies, and in terms of demographic behavior, the various descent ideologies of the region submit to no easy generalizations. In what follows we shall first summarize the predominant view in the demographic literature regarding the role of African lineages and ideologies of descent, and then consider the demographic implications of the alterna- tive perspective. The Predominant View of African Lineages and Descent An African lineage exhibits a depth of three to four generations among the living (Bleek, 1987, for the Akan of Ghana; Caldwell and Caldwell, 1987) and stretches infinitely back in time through ancestors. A larger grouping, the clan, is more difficult to define in any precise way, but it is generally regarded as being a set of lineages who view themselves as being related via a distant and perhaps mythical common ancestor. The lineage is often envisioned as a finite collection of souls or spirits moving through time, such that each new birth to the lineage provides a vehicle for the return of an ancestor. In consequence, enormous spiritual weight may be invested in maintaining the continuity of the family line (Caldwell and Caldwell, 19871. In indigenous African religions the dead of recent generations were regarded as being "powerful shades," with an inter- est and a capacity to intervene in the affairs of the living. To restrain fertility is in effect to forbid the rebirth of such an ancestor and thereby condemn that ancestor to oblivion. To risk childlessness through low fertil

92 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE ity is to threaten indirectly the survival of the lineage as a whole, and to be childless by choice is all but unthinkable. Caldwell and Caldwell (1987) find that attitudes such as these remain deep rooted even among modern African elites, many of whom would be outwardly dismissive of these reli- gions. Certain fundamental economic and social functions are vested in the lineage and the wider clan, among which allocation of land is of prime importance. In the past, land was rarely owned by individuals; rather, it was controlled by the lineage and allocated to its male members, who re- tained use rights in the land and could pass these rights under certain condi- tions to their male heirs (see Brain, 1976, for Tanzania). To these functions were added a host of social sanctions that derived from the authority of the descent group. It is the lineage that buries its members, and the refusal of the lineage to do so is said to be the greatest sanction that can be brought to bear upon any individual (Bleek, 1987, for the Akan of Ghana). Even if such a sanction is rarely applied, it serves to reinforce the power of the earthly old, who are themselves near to becoming powerful shades and who may exert their influence on younger members of the lineage by threatening to bring down an ancestral curse. Thus the emphasis given to descent and to ancestors in sub-Saharan societies bears a logical relationship to gerontocracy, filial piety, and age grades of authority among the living (Caldwell and Caldwell, 1987~.3 Marriage is the means by which the lineage ensures its perpetuation, and in the vast majority of-cases, marriage arrangements are accompanied by payments of bride-price (Lesthaeghe et al., 1989a).4 In patrilineal soci- eties, the payment of bride-price gives the husband's lineage claim to the children borne by the wife (Caldwell and Caldwell, 1987; Frank and McNicoll, 1987, for Kenya; Page, 1989~. Frank and McNicoll (1987) note that for Kenya, there has been a practice of paying bride-pnce in installments, with a payment following successful births of the first, second, and third chil- dren. In matrilineal societies, by contrast, the children belong by right to their mother's lineage, and bnde-pnce is much reduced in social impor tance. A woman's fear in limiting her reproduction therefore lies not only in the breaking of an understanding or contract between families, but even more deeply in the possibility of angering the ancestors-her own, in the case of matrilineal societies, or her husband's ancestors in the patnlineal 3Sudarkasa (1981) describes such age grades of authority among the Yoruba of Western Africa. 4However, Guyer (1988b) has observed a recent decline in bride-price payments in Nigeria, which may reflect a broader decline in many types of tribute payments.

THE HO USEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 93 case. In addition, should fertility limitation threaten the bride-pnce agree- ment, the woman's relations might be required to forfeit valuable resources. Thus, an array of relatives on both sides may confront the contraceptive innovator. Caldwell and Caldwell (1987:414) argue that the influence of lineages in reproduction is such that "even educated women working in the modern sector regard their reproduction as distinct from their sexuality- as being the decisionmaking province of their husbands and their husbands' families." The pressures from the lineage that can be brought to bear upon indi- vidual couples can be daunting, as is illustrated in a study regarding atti- tudes toward voluntary sterilization in five regions of Zaire: Kinshasa, Bas Zaire, Sud Kivu, Haut Zaire, and Shaba (Chibalonza et al., 1989). Focus group results show that a husband's family could exert considerable lever- age on the couple, even if the husband and wife had agreed between them- selves as to the desirability of sterilization. The wife's not continuing her childbearing can be construed by the family as a failure to honor the agree- ment implicit in her bride-price. Even if the husband's family at first agrees to sterilization, it may eventually seek another wife for the husband so that he can continue to bring children into the lineage.5 In general, the ties between a husband and wife in marriage are re- garded as being weak and subordinate to the interests of their respective lineages (Bleek, 1987, for the Akan of Ghana). A lineage needs marriage for procreation but sees to it by various means that the loyalty of the mar- riage partners remains with the lineage. With reference to the Akan of Ghana, Asante-Darko and van der Geest (1983:246) say that "relatives look askance at a marriage in which husband and wife develop a close relation- ship." A woman in no sense joins her husband's lineage upon mamage; rather, she remains part of her own (Caldwell and Caldwell, 1987~. More- over, it is not uncommon for women to return to live with their own lin- eages upon completion of childbearing (Sanjek, 1983, for Accra, Ghana). Indeed, if both wife and husband have relatives near at hand, they may maintain separate residences throughout the marriage, living with members of their own lineages (Robertson, 1976, for the Ga of Accra, Ghana; Abu, 1983, for Ashanti of Ghana; Hagan, 1983, for the Effutu of Ghana; Bleek, 1987). SIn Bas Zaire, by contrast, where the basis of descent is largely matrilineal, the husband's family was not viewed as so important in sterilization decisions (Chibalonza et al., 1989).

94 FA CTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE Distinction Between Patrilineal and Matrilineal Societies Certain significant features differentiate patrilineal from matrilineal de- scent groups.6 It is important to note first that the implications of matrilineality do not extend to patriarchal authority as such. Even in matrilineal societies, men still assume control over matters of inhentance, land, marnage, and politics (Henn, 1984~. In a matrilineal society it is the maternal uncle who passes his property and social position to his sister's sons.7 The key demo- graphic differences between these descent systems have to do with the so- cial importance accorded to marnage, and with certain mechanisms that in matrilineal groups are thought to enhance the social and economic security of women. By comparison to patrilineal societies, matrilineal societies typically place much less emphasis on the marriage ceremony. For example, Bleek (1987) reports never having seen a marriage ceremony, so little import attaches to it, in his field work among the matrilineal Twi-speaking Akan of Ghana. It seems that the husband-wife bond may be even weaker among matrilineal groups than among patnlineal groups, although little direct evi- dence is available on this pointy Several features of matrilineal societies contribute to the economic and social security of women (Henn, 1984~. First, a woman in such a society is less likely to move away from her maternal village upon first marnage. If her husband has not yet inherited land from his maternal uncle at the time of marriage, he may establish a household and begin to fawn in his wife's village.9 Second, if the marriage dissolves, a divorced woman who has moved away can reactivate land rights in her maternal village much more easily than a divorced woman in patrilineal societies. Third, upon divorce, a woman's children remain with her because they belong by right to their maternal rather than to their paternal kin (Brain, 1976, for Tanzania; Bleek, 1987; Page, 1989~. Thus, to the extent that economic insecurity per se 6In the Human Relations Area File data for Africa examined by Lesthaeghe et al. (1989a), 18 percent of ethnic groups are classified as matrilineal and 12 percent are both matrilineal and matrilocal. 7Yet the relationship between a man and his sister's son can be difficult, in part due to uncertainties surrounding inheritance. Sister's sons expect to inherit according to the seniority by age of their mothers, but their abilities to manage the inheritance also enter into the deci- sion by the lineage head and elders. 8There does appear to be a well-documented and significant association between matrilineal- ity and rates of divorce; see Lesthaeghe et al., (1989a). However, this association may reflect the greater ease with which women in matrilineal societies can obtain a divorce, instead of weaker bonds between husbands and wives. 9See Munachonga (1988) for a discussion of the implications of such arrangements for the authority of the husband vis-a-vis his father- and mother-in-law.

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 95 provides women with an incentive for high fertility, it would seem that pronatalist pressures might be somewhat reduced in matrilineal settings. Yet because there is also a greater assurance of economic returns to chil- dren over the long term, the value of children may be greater in matrilineal groups that is, greater from the woman's perspective. These are compli- cated issues, to which we return below. The contrasts between matnlineal and patrilineal groups should not be overdrawn. For western Africa, Sudarkasa (1981:54) writes, "It was com- mon for women to have important roles within patrilineages as well as within matrilineages in West Africa, and in their roles as sisters and daugh- ters of the lineage, they often exercised de facto authority and/or power within the 'public sphere'." For the patrilineal Zulu and Swazi of south- eastern Africa, Ngubane (1987) describes a set of special provisions made in the bride-price agreement for the economic security of the bnde. An Alternative Perspective The region's documented high fertility has been consistent with an em- phasis on lineage orientation in sub-Saharan Africa, but the debate in the anthropological literature about the importance of lineage should not be overlooked. Kuper (1982a,b) has traced the course of the debate to nine- teenth century theorists of British anthropology, who were concerned with whether the origins of statehood could be found along the lines of kinship or terntory, or as Kuper puts it, in "blood" or in "soil." Those arguing in favor of temtory viewed lineages as being "secondary and often unstable embroideries" on the more fundamental terr~tonally based patterns of group residence and economic organization (Kuper, 1982a:78, citing Kroeber, 1938~. The work of Evans-Pntchard on the Nuer of Sudan, when coupled with that of Fortes (1945, 1949) on the Tallensi of northern Ghana, established the primacy of the lineage model in the British school of African anthropol- ogy, and it is of course this conceptual model of fully corporate lineages that dominates today's demographic literature. Yet even the fit of the lin- eage concept to the Nuer is in doubt. Evans-Pritchard (1940) himself (as quoted in Kuper 1982a: 84) admitted that a Nuer rarely spoke of his lineage as being distinct from his community. As he wrote, I have watched a Nuer who knew precisely what I wanted, trying on my behalf to discover from a stranger the name of his lineage. He often found great initial difficulty in making the man understand the information re- quired of him, for Nuer think generally in terms of local divisions and of the relationships between them, and an attempt to discover lineage affilia- tions apart from their community relations, and outside a ceremonial con- text, generally led to misunderstanding ....

96 FA CTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE The linkage between the conceptual model of the lineage and the empirical data was evidently never very clear; indeed, as Kuper (1982a:82) observes, Evans-Pritchard "increasingly came to glory in the lack of fit between the model and the empirical reports." This is not to suggest that lineage concepts be dismissed as irrelevant to demographic concerns. Rather, the point to be extracted from the debate is that principles of descent do not necessarily exert any fundamental or domi- nant influence on African reproductive decision making. In some settings, lineage orientation is of so little importance that an individual's identity in respect to a lineage is itself adaptable: He may align himself with one or another lineage depending on the gains to be secured from such a manipula- tion of identities (see Guyer, 1981, and the discussion in Messina, 1992~. Thus, lineages may be amplified in demographic significance in some cir- cumstances, whereas in others they may be safely ignored. Even among the Yoruba of western Africa, whose ethnography has shaped so much of the demographic discourse for Africa, "corporate descent groups are contingent on other factors; they cannot be taken as the primary units of analysis" (Eades, 1980, quoted in Guyer, 1981:924. The centrality of lineage onenta- tion is a matter to be explored on a society-by-society basis with due con- sideration for other aspects of social organization. We would agree with Guyer (1981:89), who writes, What has emerged over the last twenty years of scholarship on kinship is that the concept of the lineage and topologies of lineage systems disguise far too much of the variability in the way things get done: children brought up, livings made, authority achieved and assigned, land distributed .... Certainly, the more sweeping generalizations about African descent sys- tems, wherein the duty to perpetuate the lineage is invested with religious significance and the ancestors seem to figure in day-to-day reproductive decisions, are of very doubtful reliability if applied across the whole of sub- Saharan Africa. Summary of the Implications of Lineage Orientation To sum up, several implications for modern reproductive behavior fol- low from a consideration of lineage and descent in sub-Saharan Africa. The first implication derives from the weight attached to the continuity of the broader family line. To the extent that lineage orientation assumes social, religious, and cultural importance, we would expect the fertility response to mortality decline to be slower in African settings, in comparison to that elsewhere in the developing world. As just noted, the emphasis on lineage continuity must be set in per- spective and judged in relation to other elements of local social and eco- nomic structure. Furthermore, although it may run deep in certain African

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 97 cultures if not in all, a lineage orientation is hardly peculiar to sub-Saharan Africa. Such an orientation is found among any number of cultures, includ- ing several in Asia that have gone on to record very rapid fertility declines. Perhaps the key difference between the African and Asian experiences is that despite some downward change, mortality levels have remained rela- tively high in sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, as noted in Chapter 3, not all African groups in fact perceive child survival to be more likely now than it was a generation ago. Thus, parents and the elders of the lineage may not appreciate that where continuity is concerned, the need for high fertility is not as compelling as it was in the past. Second, the emphasis on lineage and ancestors is logically connected to age gradings of authority. This connection may matter in an era of rapid social and economic change, since the lineage surrenders decision-making powers to those individuals who are perhaps least well equipped to under- stand the nature of contemporary society and the direction of change. Third, a lineage orientation involves in reproductive matters a whole set of relevant decision makers beyond the wife and husband. For instance, in a matrilineal group a wife's brother may take an interest in the reproduction of his sister. This multiplicity of interests is associated with weakness in the conjugal bond: As Bleek (1987:139,142) writes for the matrilineal Akan, "The lasting association of women with their lineage provides them with a strong 'solidarity group' which cuts right through their conjugal bond . . . On the whole . . . the lineage has the better cards." Fourth, lineage organization has a bearing on the distribution of eco- nomic returns to childbearing, and in particular on the support children are expected to provide to their mothers and fathers. From the woman's point of view the longer-term prospect of returns from children may well be less in patrilineal societies than in matrilineal. If a woman's marriage ends in divorce, her children remain with her husband's lineage in patrilineal soci- eties, although she may be allowed to retain an unweaned or very young child (Schildkrout, 1983, for the Hausa of Kano, Nigeria). If she is wid- owed, the children can remain with her if she marries the husband's brother (the levirate); otherwise, she can only hope that the children will transfer to her some portion of their own inheritance (Henn, 1984, on widowhood; Frank and McNicoll, 1987, for Kenya; Ladipo, 1987, for the Yoruba of Ife). In matrilineal settings, by contrast, a woman has greater assurance of con- tinued support from her children irrespective of the course of her marriage. This arrangement would seem to enhance the returns from children and the motivation for high fertility among women in matrilineal societies. Yet in the short term, a woman in a patrilineal society may have a greater need for children to help secure her access to land held by her husband's lineage, and children constitute her only possible claim on the wealth produced in the marriage but held by the husband for his heirs.

98 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE Conversely, in matrilineal societies it is the husband's motivations for high fertility that are at issue. Once again a distinction must be drawn between the long-run prospects of returns from children, which would not appear to favor husbands in matrilineal settings, and the advantages for men that can be wrested from fertility in the shorter term. These are complex matters, and the literature does not provide any consensus on the net consequences for fertility that follow from the matnlineal-patrilineal distinction. Finally, we should take note of one general area of agreement in the literature: The demographic significance of the lineage has been progres- sively undermined by economic development and modernization. Caldwell et al. (1991) describe lineage authority as being under attack from a van ety of directions even in the colonial era. Lesthaeghe et al. (1989a) suggest that the integration of rural and urban economies, and the emergence of human capital as a movable economic asset, have combined to weaken the control of lineages over economic resources and decision making. Thus, the view that lineages and long-standing systems of descent must continue to inhibit fertility decline in modern Africa is in doubt. KIN NETWORKS AND CHILD FOSTERING With regard to day-to-day economic assistance and support, the conju- gal family tends to rely not so much on the lineage as a whole as on its closest relations within the lineage.~° Lloyd and Brandon (1991) show that the great bulk of remittances and income transfers in Ghana travels within a tight circle: spouses, children, parents; and siblings. The economic assis- tance provided by close kin is also evident in studies of migrant remittance flows in Kenya (Knowles and Anker, 1981~; the vast majority of docu- mented transfers are those between children and parents, and among sib- lings. Urban-to-rural transfers are used to help sustain consumption in rural areas and are said to be important in financing the schooling of rural chil- dren (Rempel and Lobdell, 1978; Stark and Lucas, 1988~. Among the Ga of Accra (Robertson, 1976:128), mothers and daughters are said to share "one money-bag." A substantial number of transfers take place as well between women and certain mother substitutes: the mother's sisters, father's sisters, and so on. For the matnlineal Akan, Okali (1983:176) reports that "a good mother's brother is expected to help his sister's sons, thereby obliging the latter to reciprocate in the next generation either through their own sisters' sons or through other matrilineal dependents." Educated Was Bleek (1987) notes for the Akan of Ghana, the wider lineage tends to provide services of a social or ritual character rather more often than it does economic assistance.

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 99 children are thought to owe special obligations to those who gave them support. Child Fostering Demographers have only recently begun to explore the implications of child fostering for fertility in sub-Saharan Africa, and with one significant exception (Ainsworth, 1991), economic demographers have yet to address the issue with data adequate to the task. Yet as Page (1989:401) has ar- gued, the institution of child fostering presents a fundamental challenge to the dominant conceptual model of the household: "We find analyses of fertility in terms of the costs and benefits of children, or in terms of the demand for children, all cast in a model in which the childbearer (or beget- ter) is assumed to be the person responsible for bringing the child to full adult status .... quite inappropriate for most of sub-Saharan Africa." The prevalence of child fostering in sub-Saharan Africa is impressive indeed. An analysis of World Fertility Survey (WFS) data by Page (1989) shows that among children aged 0-4, perhaps 6 to 8 percent live with some- one other than their mother; the figure increases to 18 to 20 percent among children aged 5-9, and 22 to 25 percent among those aged 10-14. Consid- enng various ethnic groups in Ghana, Blanc and Lloyd (1990) find that the proportion of households with a fostered-out child ranges from 20 to 48 percent. Lloyd and Brandon (1991), also with reference to Ghana, show that the percentage of households with fostered-in children ranges from 17 for households headed by a male of working age, to as high as 74 percent if the head is a woman of age 60 or older. Evidently the practice of fostering occurs on a very considerable scale. Most children are fostered to kin, although a significant proportion 1lThe figures cited are median values for WFS data classified by some 56 subregions in Cameroon, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria, and the Sudan, taken from Page (1989:Figure 9.3). There is considerable variation in these data: The upper quartiles are 10 to 12 percent for children aged 0-4; 20 to 23 percent for children aged 5-9; and 28 to 30 percent for children aged 10-14. Note that children may live with their father (especially in patrilineal societies after the divorce of the biological parents), so the percentages of children who do not live with their mother may overstate, to a degree, the prevalence of child fostering. However, closer examination of the situations among the Mende (Isaac and Conrad, 1982) and in C8te d'Ivoire (Ainsworth, 1991) suggests that the figures are not much overstated and provide a generally reliable guide to the prevalence of fostering. 12Lloyd and Desai (1991) have also examined this issue from the child's point of view. They find that in Kenya and Burundi, where fostering is generally less prevalent, children spend less than 10 percent of their childhood years living away from their natural mothers. In Botswana and Liberia, by contrast, 30 percent of the childhood years are lived away from the mother.

100 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE reside with nonkin.~3 As Ainsworth (1991) notes, the prevalence of foster- ing to relatives can be explained in terms of minimizing transaction costs for both the sending and the receiving households, and reducing the burdens of monitoring and supervision. A kin relationship may also be put to ad- vantage by the host household, to help ensure flows of resources from the natural parents. The institution of fostering performs a number of important economic and social functions. It is useful to distinguish among these according to the motivations for fostering-out and fostering-in, and by the age of the child. From the fostering-out point of view, the institution (1) provides a mechanism for reducing the costs of rearing young children, especially if the child is fostered to a rural area (for the Avatime of Togo, see Brydon, 1983; for the Mende of Sierra Leone, Bledsoe and Isiugo-Abanihe, 1989~. (Rural areas are commonly viewed as safer and more tranquil environments for the rearing of young children; Page, 1989.) Fostering-out gives the natal family a means of managing the consequences of its high fertility and closely spaced births. It may also help a natal family living elsewhere to strengthen its ties with a home village (Page, 1989; Bledsoe and Isiugo- Abanihe, 1989, for the Mende). (2) For older children, fostering may posi- tion the child with a relative who is selected on the basis of ability to supply some educational advantage, whether in terms of formal schooling (Isaac and Conrad, 1982, for the Mender Okojie, 1991, for Bendel and Kwara states in Nigeria) or apprenticeship (Schildkrout, 1983, for the Hausa of Kano, Nigeria). Fostering also widens the contacts of the child within the urban social and employment network. Children may be deliberately placed with potentially powerful patrons who can assist the child in later life (Goody, 1982, for the Gonja of Ghana). There is also the widely held view that older children receive better discipline when they are raised by nonparental caretakers (although this is not always the case as described in the next section) (Bledsoe and Isiugo-Abanihe, 1989, on the Mender Goody, 1982, on the Gonja of northern Ghana, as cited in Page, 1989~. Regarding fostering-in, there are several potential motivations. (1) In rural areas there is the value of child farm labor to consider (for the Avatime of Togo, see Brydon, 1983; for the Mende, Isaac and Conrad, 1982), al- though this motivation was perhaps more important in the past than it is today; for urban areas (Ainsworth, 1991, on Cote d'Ivoire), fostered-in chil- dren may provide significant assistance in domestic tasks and family busi- nesses. (2) Fostered-in children supply additional dependents for the host household, which in some settings may assist the household heads in their ]3For the Mende of Sierra Leone, Isaac and Conrad (1982) find that 17 percent of fostered children under age 15 are sent to nonkin.

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 101 own strategies for economic and social advancement.l4 (3) Fostenng-in also provides a means of strengthening the obligations of the natal parents to the foster parent (Bledsoe and Isiugo-Abanihe, 1989, for the Mende). Fostering of Young Children Bledsoe arid Isiugo-Aban~he (1989) consider the instructive case of granny fostering among the Mende of Sierra Leone. The grannies in question are usually based in rural villages. They are often, but need not be, the child's actual maternal or paternal grandmother; in some cases the granny is simply another relative of that generation. Young Mende children are fostered-out simply to "raise them up" to learning age; until they reach the "age of sense," children are considered to be incapable of learning very much, and there is little harm in placing them with relations who have low status or little access to schools. When the fostered child reaches the age of sense, however, he or she is usually re- moved from the granny's care, perhaps to be fostered-out elsewhere. In raising the children, Mende grannies are notorious for spoiling them, "petting" them, and being lax about discipline. In part, this treatment yields emotional rewards for the grannies, but it is also intended to inculcate a sense of obligation in the child, which will in time be expressed in support from the child himself and, in the nearer future, in flows of resources from the child's parents. Fostering gives the granny a means of acquiring re- sources from the modern world, to which a rural-based older woman might not otherwise have access. Thus, children serve to forge an economic link between adults, thereby providing an example of the "lateral strategy" of network building through children that has been explored in the work of Guyer ( 1 988b), discussed below. The grannies are said to levy great pressure even on young, educated urban women to maintain high fertility rates and to begin bearing children early. They can request that a child be brought to them, invoking as neces- sary the persuasive devices of pity, guilt, and the respect due a family elder. As Bledsoe and Isiugo-Abanihe (1989:466) write, This pressure does not stem simply from a desire to increase the size of the kin group. Rather, it stems largely from grannies' desires for modern goods and services from parents of the children they mind. As one young woman complained: "Whenever I come [to the rural area from Freetown], they [my elderly kinswomen] keep talking about getting married and hav 14Among the Baule of Cote d'Ivoire (Etienne, 1983), fostering and adoption were key mech- anisms for providing married women with additional dependents, who then could assist in the woman's own economic and social advancement.

102 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE ing kids. When I say I'm not interested in that now, they say 'Alright, just have the children and then send them to us to train.' As long as you can send them support, they will be happy. Then you can have your child when you are ready." Fostering of Older Children Whereas younger children are typically fostered to rural areas (Isaac and Conrad, 1982), fostering to urban households is much more common for children older than 5 years, who by virtue of their age "have sense" and are ready to begin intensive training and education in preparation for adult work roles (Isaac and Conrad, 1982~. It is still predominantly kin who foster-in, but in contrast to the grannies, these are kin selected on the basis of urban position, ability to provide apprenticeships or schooling, and the like. Older children are sometimes sent out in response to economic hard- ship in the family, but it seems that parents usually foster-out in the hope of securing advantages for their children (Bledsoe and Isiugo-Abanihe, 19891. Although in the past, older children were valuable as inputs into farm production, this motivation has receded in importance among the Mende. Children require some measure of supervision on the fawn, and in conse- quence, adult and child farm labor are complementary to a degree. Many young adults have out-migrated from the Mende rural areas, and lacking supervision, children have become an economic burden in some rural set- tings.is Ainsworth (1991) also finds evidence against a demand for child .farm labor as an explanation for fostering-in in Cote d'Ivoire: Rural house- holds are more likely to foster-out children whereas urban households are more likely to foster them in. The role of schooling and apprenticeships, which is cited as the pre- dominant motivation for fostering-out in a number of ethnographic studies, evidently merits closer attention. Ainsworth (1991), working with a large sample of observations from C8te d'Ivoire, finds that only trivial propor- tions of fostered-in children work as apprentices. The situation with regard to schooling is also more complex than might have been imagined. There are considerable within-household differences in enrollment rates, such that fostered-in children have much lower enrollment rates than do own chil- dren, especially in the case of girls. Moreover, Ainsworth's comparisons iSIsaac and Conrad for the Mende (1982:255): "Farming households were, thus, unburden- ing themselves of many children and making a conscious effort to seek educational. advantage, whether through formal schooling or apprenticeship, for them." i6Ainsworth's sample is comprised of children ages 7-14, who are generally too old to be granny-fostered.

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 103 show that fostered-out girls have lower enrollment rates than do their nonfostered sisters in the households of origin, whereas fostered-out boys have roughly the same enrollment rates as their nonfostered brothers. Children fostered from rural areas have lower enrollment rates than do their own nonfostered siblings. Yet Ainsworth also finds that the host households spend considerable amounts on the schooling of fostered-in children, if perhaps not as much as is spent on their own children. Thus, the picture regarding education is rather mixed. Perhaps a consideration of secondary schooling would have produced more evidence in favor of the schooling investments hypothesis. It seems that host households do derive certain benefits from the labor of their fostered-in children. In rural areas of Cote d'Ivoire, fostered-in children are more likely to work on the farm than are own children of the household; in urban areas, fostered-in children are more likely to do house- work than are own children. Thus, the dominant picture for Cute d'Ivoire is one in which fostered-in children provide substitutes for the labor that oth- erwise would have been supplied by own children, had those own children not themselves gone to school. Regarding foster~ng-out as a means of managing the economic conse- quences of high fertility, Ainsworth (1991) finds there to be little influence of household permanent income on fostering-out of children (aged 7-14) in Cote d'Ivoire. This lack of influence is consistent with the reports of Isaac and Conrad for the Mende, and suggests that the managing effect is ex- pressed, if it exists at all, in the fostering of younger children. By contrast, Blanc and Lloyd (1990) find for Ghana that the greater the number of living children in any age category, the greater is the likelihood that a child in that age range will be fostered-out.~7 Summary of the Implications of Child Fostering In summary, the institution of child fostering is of considerable demo- graphic significance in sub-Saharan Africa. It is one aspect of social orga- nization that is wholly distinctive to the region, certainly so in terms of scale. Fostering-out provides a way to spread the costs of childrearing by enlisting one's kin in the process, and thereby reduces the net expected costs of one's own high fertility. In addition, where fostering-in represents an obligation on the part of the receiving household, it may defeat the intent 17Other demographic behaviors are also related to fostering. Blanc and Lloyd (1990) note that fostering-out is more prevalent among recent migrants in Ghana. Page (1989) shows convincingly that fostering is related to the incidence of marriage dissolution; she terms this "crisis fostering."

104 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE of family limitation. As one man in Burkina Faso said, "If you limit your children to be able to take good care of them, and then they send you children for schooling because you don't have enough, there's no more family planning" (McGinn et al., 1989a:861. TlIE CONJUGAL BOND As has been indicated above, the conjugal bond is thought to be rela- tively weak in sub-Saharan Africa, that is, frail by comparison to the ties of lineage and the demands that other kin outside the marriage can place on the husband and wife. This weakness is important for three reasons: (1) a frail conjugal bond may prevent one or both members of a married couple from confronting the full costs of childrearing, thereby leading to a bargain- ing situation within the household in which the interests of the member with the lower perceived costs (presumably the husband) may prevail; (2) the uncertainties and conflicts in such settings may themselves provide an in- centive for high fertility, as childbearing becomes both a strategy for cap- turing the continuing interest of the other party, and a means of ensuring economic security should the relationship dissolve; and (3) weakness in the conjugal bond may leave the couple vulnerable to the demands of other kin- group members (the Mende grannies being one such example) who have something to gain from the couple's high fertility and very little to lose in the way of childrearing costs. The implications for fertility are summed up by Caldwell and Caldwell (1987:421) as follows: The African family structure typically places reproductive decisionmalting in the hands of the husband and the economic burden mainly on the shoul- ders of the wife. Nothing could be more conducive to maintaining high fertility. Lesthaeghe (1989a:485-486) also takes note of the contrast, admittedly something of a caricature, between African and Asian conjugal bonds. The Asian husband-wife dyed is often pictured as being much more unified and cohesive, such that Asian husbands are "directly and fully responsible for their offspring on the basis of a pooled family budget stemming from rela- tively fixed familial land resources ...." To the extent that this portrait is accurate, one would not be surprised to find less sensitivity to child costs and greater resistance to fertility decline in the African case. The literature for West Africa, in particular, is emphatic regarding the relative weakness of the marriage bond. Caldwell et al. (1989:202) quote Omari on Ghana, "Throughout her married life a wife never identifies her- self with her husband in his aspirations and interests." Men and women are often described as being members of two different societies with few points of intersection or common interest. Paulme (1963:13) observes that "the

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 105 men put up with the presence of their wives but continue to regard them as strangers ...." This division between wife and husband can be traced to the remark- able complexity of family and kin relations in sub-Saharan Afnca. Sudarkasa (1981:56-59) wntes, For the most part women in West Africa still function within the context of families that transcend the conjugally-based nuclear family. Women are born into lineages and most of them still grow up in compounds. When they marry, they move into compounds or otherwise join families that include many significant actors other than their husbands .... The West African wife is actively involved in a number of decision making domestic and kinship networks, only one of which is the immediate conjugal unit comprised of.herself, her husband, and in some instances, her co-wives. The cleavage in interests between husband and wife is further widened by the instability of African marriage, as evidenced in high rates of divorce and widowhood. Lesthaeghe et al. (1989a) have calculated the prevalence of divorce and widowhood for a variety of sub-Saharan countries primarily for the 1970s. They find that some 20 percent of women are either divorced or widowed at age 50 in Senegal, which is the country in their sample with the lowest levels of marital dissolution, and the prevalence of widowhood and divorce is in the neighborhood of 40 percent in western Cameroon, Lesotho, Zambia, Tanzania, and Malawi. These prevalence figures are in- structive as to the likely incidence of divorce and widowhood. Studies of incidence rates themselves are not common, but Lesthaeghe et al. (1989a) suggest that divorce is somewhat more frequent in eastern than in western Africa. Incidence rates have been calculated for four African countries that conducted a WFS: Kenya, Lesotho, Senegal, and northern Sudan (Smith et al., 1984~. The probability of dissolution of first union by separation or divorce within five years of marriage was highest for Senegal (14 percent), followed by Kenya and Sudan (with 8 and 7 percent respectively). For Lesotho, there was a five percent probability of divorce or separation. As Pittin (1987:29) remarks for the Hausa of Katsina, "Given a high divorce rate, differential longevity of women and men, and the fact that women in their forties rarely remarry, and even women in their thirties may not re- marry, it is clear that a woman works for her own and her children's secu- nty, and does not tie her fortunes to those of her husband." 18The data indicate very different age patterns of marital status in western and eastern Africa, probably as a result of including both widowhood and divorce in the numerators of the prevalence measures. Prevalence calculations have the disadvantage of confounding rates of marriage dissolution with rates of remarriage. Their advantage lies in indicating how much of the life cycle a typical woman or man might spend outside of marriage.

106 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE The husband and wife are further divided by the institution of po- lygyny, which may place women in a bargaining position vis-a-vis each other and the husband, and which is associated with large age gaps between husband and wife, hence with a greater likelihood of widowhood. A map- ping of African zones of polygyny testifies to the enduring prominence of this institution (Lesthaeghe et al., 1989a). There is a long arc along the Atlantic coast where at least 40 percent of married women participate in polygynous unions, the only exceptions are among the matrilineal Akan groups of southeast Cote d'Ivoire and southwest Ghana, and the border areas of southeast Nigeria and southwest Cameroon. The incidence of po- lygyny is somewhat lower elsewhere on the continent, although there exist levels as high as 30 percent in an East African zone stretching southward from Kisumu in Kenya to Mozambique. Further inspection shows that matrilineal societies are less likely to practice polygyny, especially if they are also matnlocal (Lesthaeghe et al., 1989a).~9 Lesthaeghe et al. (1989a) review the argument of Goody (1976), Boserup (1970), and others that links the economic value of female labor to incen- tives for men to establish polygynous households.20 Traditional polygyny can be viewed as a response to the high productive value of women in hoe- based agriculture, and for western Africa one would also want to consider the economic surplus that can be derived from a woman's involvement in trade. In general, where these economic contributions are high, one expects higher levels of polygyny and relatively quick remarriage of widows. But where cattle raising, animal husbandry, and plow agriculture are more im- portant, and trading is less common (as in eastern Africa), the value of women's labor may be relatively less, and from this perspective there is less incentive on the male side to enter into polygynous unions. As to the possible incentives for women that are inherent in the institution, Steady (1987) notes the economic benefits that can be derived when polygyny permits wives to specialize among themselves and coordinate their tasks under the supervision of the senior wife, whom Steady likens to the "fore- man" of the family labor force.2t i9In a matrilineal society a husband would be obliged to marry sisters if the household is to avoid a mix of children who belong to different lineages. 20The analysis is somewhat broader than indicated here, because male incentives to gather together a group of wives and offspring may also have to do with the economic surplus that can be gleaned from the labor of children and other dependents. 21In the fishing villages of Sierra Leone studied by Steady (1987), the processing, handling, and marketing of fish are entirely in the hands of women. Women buy fish directly from their husbands' boats, and transactions with the husband and other middlemen over the course of the season are managed much as a small business might handle its accounts payable and receiv- able. Specialization within a polygynous household might go so far as the delegation of one wife to the provinces, so that she can manage the profitable sale of fish away from home.

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 107 Yet these arguments regarding the functionality of polygyny should not obscure its elements of conflict.22 Hagan (1983) remarks on the economic implications of a second wife for the first wife among the Effutu of Ghana, where wives handle, process, and market the fish caught by their husbands. When a second wife enters the marriage, the first wife thereafter receives only half of her husband's catch to sell; in effect she "splits her basket into two." Women often express anxiety regarding the character of the other wives entering the marriage and also worry about the potential for jealousy among wives and the possibilities of the evil eye. (The quotations below are taken from focus group sessions conducted in Lagos; see Adegbola et al., 1991.) If you say you will mind your own business and face your trade . . . you will struggle on your own. The other woman he will bring up [may have] a bad character, she is lazy, a pokenoser; the children you gave birth to will not have rest of mind because they would start using diabolical means on them and the children with brighter future will not be able to make it. [Yoruban woman, age 50+] But there is also the clear-eyed view among women that polygyny simply underlines the need for a woman to be economically self-reliant: Some women do fear, that their husband would someday take a second wife. But if she has her job, she has no problem. If he likes let him marry, if he likes let him not, my own is my job. Once I sell my goods, I won't bother even if he marries ten. [Yoruban woman, aged 20-49] These characteristics of marriage reinforce for women the necessity of achieving economic autonomy and independence, an achievement in which high fertility may play a strategic part. Guyer (1988b; also see Bledsoe, l990b) has observed in contemporary Nigeria an increase in what she terms "lateral strategies" of network building for women. The notion is that women, lacking economic assets commensurate with those of men, must pursue various avenues of access to the economic resources held by men. A woman can make no claims of a lasting nature by virtue of a sexual rela- tionship alone, nor are her possibilities much improved by marriage. Rather, it is the act of having a child with a man that advances a longer-term claim to his resources. In a sense, the rewards of childbearing, for the woman, are immediately at hand. Such immediate rewards associated with fertility may be more tangible than the distant and uncertain prospect of resource flows from the child itself. As Guyer (1988b:7) writes, "The fact of the child growing to adulthood and supporting [the parents] in older age can almost 22Bledsoe (in press) considers the conflicts among wives in respect to investments in the education of their children.

108 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE be seen as an unintended consequence, a bonus which may or may not materialize." Moreover, mamage to any given man may be regarded as restrictive, in the sense that a woman might improve her prospects for economic security by creating links to several men (Bledsoe, l990a,b). Within marriage, mul- tiple links can be made via relationships with patrons or lovers, but over time they can be achieved by divorce and remarriage, as long as childbearing accompanies marriage. In each marriage a child stakes out the claim to resources, and as Guyer (1988b) notes, marriage itself becomes almost inci- dental to a woman's reproductive and economic career. Separate Residence In addition to the separation of spouses that arises from long-distance labor migration, as in southern Africa, the demands of seasonal agriculture also produce regular separations between the spouses in a variety of sub- Saharan settings.23 Even among settled urban populations, however, it is not at all unusual for a husband and wife to live apart, especially if both spouses have members of their lineage living nearby.24 Furthermore, con- tinuous coresidence is really feasible only in a monogamous marnage; a polygynous husband usually lives with none of his wives or rotates his living arrangements among them (Abu, 1983, for the Ashanti). There are life-cycle aspects to coresidence as well. As noted by Abu (1983) and Sanjek (1983) for Ghana, the probability of living with a conju- gal partner tends to decrease for women after age 35. Most women from age 40 on live in households that they head or share with other adult women, and from this age many women embark on economic enterprises of their own. Interestingly, among the Ashanti in Ghana described by Abu (1983), where perhaps half of spouses maintain separate residences, coresidence is said by women to be a desirable thing, because it brings all the household expenses to the attention of the husband and assists in matters of child discipline. Yet a significant minority of Abu's sample judged the practical difficulties attendant on coresidence to be simply insurmountable. As ex 23See Hagan (1983) for an account of seasonal separations among the Effutu of coastal Ghana, a fishing group in which men leave to fish elsewhere in the off-season, often taking on other women to process and market their fish and look after their well-being. 24For the matrilineal Akan, see Bleek (1987); for the Ga of Accra, Robertson (1976); for the Ashanti, Abu (1983); and for Ghana, Lloyd and Brandon (1991:21). Vercruijsse (1983) finds that fewer than 40 percent of married women reside with their husbands among the Fanti of Ghana.

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 109 amples of such difficulties, both men and women mentioned quarreling among spouses, the fact that men will be too closely observed by their wives, the general lack of privacy when being visited by friends or rela- tives, and for women, the worry about what property belonging to the mar- r~age would be talon away by the husband's relatives upon his death. Separate Economic Responsibilities and Resources Embedded in both ideology and centuries of practice is the expectation that an African woman must play the major role in feeding her family, either by growing the food herself or, through trade or other means, by earning the money necessary to buy the food (Henn, 1984~. This expecta- tion is implicit in the importance placed by African women on their work, which permits them to fulfill a fundamental responsibility and is therefore seen as being integral to a woman's identity. In Kenya, for instance, women take primary responsibility for the farming that feeds the family. Men have an obligation to clear and plow the land, or to make arrangements for doing so. Men also ensure that the bride-pnce payments continue to be met and cover any major family expenses beyond food and clothing, including school fees and perhaps the costs arising from health care (Frank and McNicoll, 1987). Elsewhere the husband may have more extensive obligations in matters of childrearing expenses. Among the Ga of Accra, Ghana, the husband is expected to pay for the food and clothing of his conjugal family. His obligations extend to the children's education, although in many cases a woman will pay the school fees when her husband is unable to do so (Robertson, 19761. Adegbola et al. ( 1991) find a similar division of responsibilities in Lagos, Nigeria, where if the wife does pay the school fees, her husband is obliged to pay her back. Some variance of views is expressed in the Lagos study regarding the wife's responsibilities for school expenses other than fees. A number of respondents view school uniforms and materials as falling under the wife's set of obligations.25 Regarding health care, how- ever, Adegbola et al. (1991) found broad agreement that expenses are to be met pnmar~ly by the husband, with support from his wife should he be caught short. In sum, there is general agreement that major items of childrearing expense, including food and clothing in some instances and by all accounts 25Kritz and Gurak (1991) report that Yoruba husbands have responsibilities for school fees and children's clothes. Okojie (1991) also reports that husbands in Bendel and Kwara states have an obligation to meet school fees as well as health-related expenses. Guyer (1988a) finds that in Cameroon, Beti men are responsible for school fees. #

. 110 FA CTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE the major expenditures related to education, are the primary responsibility of the husband. Thus, to say that the burdens of childrearing fall almost entirely on the shoulders of the wife, which is the view advanced by Caldwell and Caldwell (1987) among many others, is to overstate the case consider- ably. In many sub-Saharan countnes, the husband has his own large and regular commitments to the children that must be met as a part of his conjugal family obligations, although certainly many of the day-to-day ex- penses will remain the responsibility of the wife. Beyond these central obligations to their children and to each other, however, the interests of the wife and husband may diverge sharply. Ashanti men (Abu, 1983) provide their wives and children with the basic necessi- ties- such as chop (meal) money and school fees but where capital invest- ments such as houses and cocoa farms are concerned, the matrilineage takes precedence. Among the Ga of Accra, men are also said to give higher priority to financial obligations to their lineages than to those due their wives (Robertson, 1976~. Di Domenico et al. (1987:121), writing on the Ibadan and Abeokuta Yoruba of Nigeria, find that ". . . both wives and husbands had responsibili- ties in relation to their kin, and some were putting young relatives through secondary school. Few of the husbands gave their wives money to meet their obligations to kin, so wives needed to have their own source of in come." The literature is all but unanimous that resources of husband and wife are not pooled, even among the elites.26 Separate budgets are a response to a situation in which conjugal family members have independent obligations to kin outside the conjugal family (Sudarkasa, 1981~. A Ghanaian study (Gugler, 1981:174, citing Vellenga, 1971) found that some women attributed the continued viability of their marriages to the fact that the partners had not pooled their resources. With the wife's and the husband's relatives making different demands regarding school fees, funeral contri- butions, and the like, common property would create considerable difficul- ty. There were further problems in relation to inheritance, children outside the marriage, and other wives. For the same reason, joint ownership of assets is unusual. The Ashanti firmly reject the notion that a wife and husband should join together in 26For western Africa as a whole, see Sudarkasa (1981) and Guyer (1988a). See Gugler (1981) and Fapohunda (1987, 1988) on Lagos, Nigeria; di Domenico et al. (1987) for the Ibadan and Abeokuta Yoruba; Mott and Mott (1985) for the Yoruba near Ondo, Nigeria; Pittin (1987) for the Hausa in Katsina, Nigeria; Abu (1983), as well as Bleek (1987) for the Ashanti; Robertson, 1976, for the Ga of Accra, Ghana; Okali (1983) for Akan cocoa farmers; and Gugler (1981) citing Grandmaison for Dakar, Senegal.

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 111 business, citing the ever-present possibility of divorce and the siphoning of profits to other wives or to the husband's outside liaisons (Abu, 1983~. Fapohunda (1987) finds that few women in Lagos own farmland or houses with their husbands, but significant percentages own these assets jointly with their kin. To be sure, it is a common practice for husbands to provide start-up capital for the businesses of their wives, but the capital is viewed by wives as a business loan and is treated in that spirit (Robertson, 1976, on the Ga of Accra). In particular, the loan does not give the husband access to his wife's profits, or even to knowledge of their amount. Okali (1983:170) reports that among the Akan cocoa farmers, even when wives worked the farms with their husbands, they were "always aware that they were not working on joint economic enterprises. They expected eventually to estab- lish their own separate economic concerns ...." Although husbands and wives each have well-defined responsibilities regarding the maintenance of the conjugal household, neither spouse ex- pects to know the other's true income.27 As Robertson (1976) observes, an illiterate woman is often wholly ignorant of the market value of her husband's labor and has no way of estimating his income. Yet as long as the amount of support given by the husband is up to expectations, a woman does not express much concern regarding his total earnings. Abu (1983:166) says that among the Ashanti, "collaboration over do- mestic budgeting is clearly considered to be innovative and to be dependent on the understanding nature of the wife." Wives fear that the more they voluntarily contribute to household expenses, the greater is the risk that the husband may shirk his own responsibilities.28 Men are more likely to think well of the notion of cooperative budgeting, doubtless for this very reason. Obbo (1987:264), citing the views of low-income women in Kampala, reports that women believe pooling incomes to be foolish and regard it as something that only the naive or the elite would consider. These low- income women point out, with derision, that the husbands of their elite 27For the Hausa of Kano, Nigeria, see Schildkrout (1983); and for the Yoruba of Lagos, see Fapohunda (1988). We should note here the implications for collecting survey data on in- comes in sub-Saharan Africa. It seems abundantly clear that the usual practice, whereby a single respondent (generally a male household head) is selected to report on the income of the household as a whole, is highly inappropriate in this setting. 28Robertson (1976:120) notes for the Ga of Accra, "Women did not like to let their husbands know the intimate details of their businesses. Only women who got along extremely well with their husbands trusted them with knowledge of their profits. One woman, who by all accounts had a good husband, explained her cautious attitude in this way. 'Once a husband gets to know about the finances of his wife, the man begins to be tight with money toward the wife.... A safe attitude is to keep him in the dark.' "

2 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE counterparts are often found in their own poor neighborhoods, seeing their "outside" wives and providing material support to their outside children. Evidence for Emotional Nucleation In the past, even among the elites (Gugler, 1981, citing Lloyd, 1971, for Ibadan in the 1960s), a husband and wife would tend to spend little of their leisure time together. Spouses shared few close friendships, and each spouse would occupy leisure time in visiting his or her own friends in exclusively male or female gatherings. Yet scattered and anecdotal evi- dence does suggest that change is under way in the direction of growing conjugal closeness. Caldwell and Caldwell (1987) see evidence among the modern and educated elites of a gradual strengthening of the conjugal bond, which is linked to a decline in the period of postpartum sexual abstinence.29 Oppong (1987a,b) also finds norms of shared conjugal residence and shared parental responsibilities among married male school teachers in Ghana, a group that would not be classed with the elites on the basis of economic status. She notes (1987b:173) that among school teachers, the men who have smaller families "expected more joint and equal conjugal relationships and less close kin ties. They were also more likely to think they personally [as opposed to the wife alone] should bear the costs of child-care ...." Fapohunda and Todaro (1988) see the trend toward shared decision making as being, in part, an outgrowth of changes in childrearing costs and educational aspirations. Considering the Yoruba, they suggest that increases in school fees and other childrearing expenses have outstripped the finan- cial capacities of women. If such large expenditures are to be made at all, 29The Caldwells argue that the decline in abstinence is in part due to a desire for greater conjugal closeness (also see Kritz and Gurak, 1991, and Fapohunda and Todaro, 1988, on the connection among education, income, and conjugality) and in part due to a greater fear among wives that continued abstinence will bring an outside wife to disturb the marital relationship. In Burkina Faso (McGinn et al., 1989b), focus group research among women in Ouaga- dougou showed that they viewed abstinence as onerous for social, economic, and emotional reasons. In particular, it forces their husbands to go outside the marriage for sex, a practice that is both costly to the household, because husbands must buy presents for their girlfriends, and risky, because of the possibility of transmission of disease. Moreover, sex between hus- band and wife is regarded as an aid to marital harmony. Abstinence durations are shorter among younger women, the better educated, and those raised in urban areas. For Zaire, Bertrand et al. (1985) report that urban living conditions discourage abstinence; their results are consistent with the view that modern contraception is substituting for postpar- tum practices as the duration of these practices is reduced.

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 113 they require the cooperation of the husband and therefore necessitate a degree of joint decision making.30 The roots of these changes are identified by Lesthaeghe et al. (1989a) in improvements in literacy, westernization, and the gradual erosion of the powers of the lineage. They note that in many parts of Africa literacy is itself a by-product of Christian missions and is therefore linked to an ideol- ogy that favors conjugal closeness. Gugler (1981:170) adds that "most Christian missions propounded a doctrine of the equality of marriage part- ners; schools taught boys and girls; print, radio, and screen extolled the overriding importance of love ...." Lesthaeghe et al. also emphasize the gradual evolution of free partner choice in the marriage search, which is associated with the erosion of lineage controls. Yet it is difficult to say, for the present, just how deep a transformation of marriage is under way. Abu (1983:165) notes among the Ashanti "much talk by men and women of the need for trust between spouses, alongside evidence of a pervasive atmosphere of mistrust." Karanja (1987) contends that whereas elite Nigerian women reject polygyny, this attitude is not shared by their husbands. The conflicts between elite husbands and their wives may lead to surreptitious polygyny in the form of the "outside wife." Dinan (1983:351), reporting the views on marriage of white-collar single women in Accra, notes that women "accepted that it was hopeless to expect hus- bands to be faithful; at the same time they were highly critical and resentful of this adulterous behavior ...." Implications of the Weak Conjugal Bond We can draw together the various threads of this discussion in terms of the consequences of a weak conjugal bond for fertility. Much of the discus- sion has suggested that women may have separate and distinct motivations for high fertility that are independent of their husbands' motivations. Guyer' s (1988b) concept of "lateral strategies" for economic advancement on the part of women is relevant here, in that children provide the leverage with which women gain access to a share of the resources of men. Given the separation of spouse incomes and responsibilities, manage without contin- ued childbearing will not provide a woman with sufficient support. 30The consequences, however, need not be antinatalist. As Fapohunda and Todaro (1988) go on to argue, the involvement of the husband in such expenditures may give him an even greater degree of leverage in reproductive decisions. And because co-wives would drain away resources that could otherwise be used in financing the education of her own children, a monogamous wife with educational aspirations for her children will perceive polygyny to be a greater threat. The net consequence may be that she has more children than she desires, so as to satisfy her husband's reproductive goals and fend off the threat of polygyny.

14 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE Yet if the benefits of high fertility differ for men and women, so do the costs. It is often said for sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., Frank and McNicoll, 1987) that men do not fully perceive the subsistence costs involved in rear- ing children, the bulk of which are shouldered by the wife, and the wife also bears the opportunity cost of lost child labor if her children are sent to school. As noted above, this view is something of a caricature and is less generally valid than one might have supposed. We present additional evi- dence below that suggests the salience of child costs to male attitudes on family limitation. Nevertheless, it is clear that many items of expense are not borne by men and the financial burden of childrearing relative to re- sources is doubtless far greater for women.3i The implications of polygyny for fertility also deserve further com- ment. Statistical analyses show that the fertility of women in polygynous unions is often little different from, and sometimes lower than, the fertility of women in monogamous unions (e.g., Goldman and Montgomery, 1990~. Indeed, Adegbola et al. (1991) report for Lagos that a wife in a polygynous relationship possesses a certain amount of leverage in relation to a husband's demands for more children, in that she can ask him to seek out his other wives. Evidently the importance of polygyny does not consist solely in statistical differentials in fertility. One area deserving of exploration concerns the implications of po- lygyny for the fertility of monogamous marnages. A consistent theme in qualitative research on Nigeria (Guyer, 1988b; Adegbola et al., 1991) is that continued childbearing demonstrates a woman's continued commitment to the marriage and ensures a continued flow of resources from her husband. A woman who contemplates family limitation must face the possibility that any interruption in childbearing may signal, both to the husband and to his lineage, that she has effectively abandoned the marriage. The family may begin to look for another wife for the husband, and the situation may end in divorce or polygyny. To forestall this possibility, a woman in a monoga- mous marriage may persuade herself to continue childbearing. The next child becomes, as it were, one more move in the strategic game for re- sources played out between husband and wife. 3iGuyer (1988a) finds that among the Beti of Cameroon, women retain only one-fourth of their cash incomes for personal use, the remainder going primarily to purchase food for the family. Men, by contrast, retain nearly three-quarters of their cash incomes, after expenditures on housing, school fees, and bride-price. Despite their lower incomes, women contribute two- thirds of the total household cash expenditures for food and routine supplies. Fapohunda and Todaro (1988) argue that as a rule, men take responsibility for household "overhead expenses," of which rent would be an example, that do not appreciably vary with family size. (School fees present an exception.) By contrast, women have obligations that expose them more directly to the full marginal costs of childrearing.

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT PROSPECTS FOR CHANGE 115 The aim of the discussion to this point has been to illuminate the fea- tures of African fertility regimes that support high fertility. What has this sifting of the literature revealed as the principal factors? No simple answer presents itself, but we would argue that important clues are to be found in the multiplicity of roles and decision units in which a wife and husband participate in sub-Saharan Africa, and in the relative transience and impermanence of marital relations with any given spouse. Bleek (1987:148-149) describes the dilemma of family limitation exceed- ingly well: Why do rural Akan women rarely plan the number of their children? . . . For a woman, it is extremely hard to estimate the pros and cons of having a few or many children. It depends on how long her marriage will last; how many times she will marry; the financial position of her husbands; what conjugal responsibilities her husbands or lovers will accept; how many of her children will be staying with her; how many children of others will be put in her care; how much help her lineage will give; how successful she will be in earning her own income; how much help her children will offer; how successful her children will be at school and in achieving a good economic position; how healthy her children will be, and how many of them will survive to adulthood .... The aggregate "decision" in such a complex and contradictory situation is most likely inertia. Thus the eventual benefits inherent in family limitation are enveloped in a cloud of uncertainty, which itself arises from the very complexity and mul- tiplicity of roles in Afnc an social organization. The greater this element of uncertainty is, the greater is the importance of risk aversion and adherence to norms in decisions about fertility. Vanous other aspects of social organization also weigh against family planning. Family planning has the potential to upset the customary balance of social control between men and women. A worry often expressed by men is that access to family planning will give women freedom to act with greater autonomy and possibly behave promiscuously. (See, for instance, McGinn et al. 1989a, on Burkina Faso.) The weakness of the conjugal bond inhibits discussion about fertility in general, raises mutual suspicion, and renders less likely any mutual agreement between the spouses about family planning.32 32Mott and Mott (1985) find that for the Yoruba of Ondo State, three-quarters of women and men (separately interviewed) reported never having discussed how many children to have and who should make the decision with their spouse. Our analysis of 12 Demographic and Health Surveys found that the percentage of married women who had discussed family planning with their partners over the previous year ranged from 18 to 36 in western Africa (Mali, Senegal,

116 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE The duty to perpetuate the lineage and the fear of barrenness may gen- erate a deep ambivalence regarding modern reversible methods of family planning. In many African settings the notion of reversibility does not seem to have been well understood. The pill and the intrauterine device are commonly believed to pose a permanent threat to the woman's physical capacity to reproduce (Caldwell and Caldwell, 1987~. Men in Burkina Faso believe that if a woman uses contraceptives, she will not be able to have children again; the idea that modern methods could be employed for spac- ing purposes is largely absent (McGinn et al., 1989a). These fears could be viewed as a simple problem of misinformation regarding modern methods, or they could be seen as surface expressions of deeper fears.33 Voluntary sterilization, in such an atmosphere, would appear to have very limited potential. A study by Chibalonza et al. (1989:276) for Zaire indicated that even women who were currently using reversible contracep- tive methods, cited pressures from the husband's family as weighing against sterilization: "The members of the husband's family will come to complain that you aren't having any children and to influence him toward a divorce . . . . They will oblige him to take a second wife, even though the two of you were in agreement about the operation before it was done." For the woman, sterilization not only puts her present marriage under risk, but also closes off one possibility for forging economic links with other men in the future. Given these concerns, what forces could be expected to disturb the high-fertility regime? What features of economic and social organization might bring the benefits of family limitation into sharper relief and thereby prompt a transition to lower fertility? From the evidence we present below admittedly qualitative and only suggestive in nature-we nevertheless draw one clear theme: The supports for high fertility are not as strong as they might seem, given rapid change and even crisis in contemporary economic circumstances. Indeed, the evi- dence goes so far as to suggest an important role for female sterilization in Africa, unlikely as that may seem under the traditional calculus. We con- sider several factors in turn. Liberia, Ghana, Togo, and Ondo State) and from 37 to 65 percent in eastern Africa (Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, and Burundi), and reached a high of 70 percent in Botswana and Zimbabwe. A multivariate analysis showed that discussion is more likely in urban than in rural areas, and increases with the education of the woman and the education of her partner. 33In the study by McGinn et al. (1989a), men expressed generally positive attitudes to family planning in focus group discussions, which would support the misinformation interpretation.

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT Land 117 In many regions of sub-Saharan Africa, increases in population density, and consequent reductions in the viability of agricultural holdings, may have reduced the value of farm labor. Land density was among the most powerful motivations for the rapid fertility decline in Thailand (Knodel et al., 1987~. Its scarcity motivated Thai parents to invest in child schooling, substituting a new form of economic asset for the land they had previously passed down to their children. Although land scarcity is not an issue across the whole of the sub-Saharan region, there are pockets of high density in which a lack of land may emerge as a motivating factor in fertility control (e.g., in Rwanda or Burundi). Kenya provides a case in point. Bertrand et al. (1989) found lack of land cited as a prominent motive for family limitation among their Kenyan respondents. Hammerslough's (199lb) focus group studies and analysis of Kenyan Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data support this view. A consistent theme in focus group discussions was that "the land is getting smaller" as rural population density rises. Interestingly, land scarcity in parts of Kenya has been accompanied more broadly by a change in the nature of land ownership. The traditional system, wherein land was controlled by communities and lineages, has to- day been largely replaced by a system of individual land ownership due to government resettlement and title registration schemes. The greater part of agricultural land and a significant fraction of pastoral land are now regis- tered as private freehold (Frank and McNicoll, 19874. As Robinson (1992:456) notes, this change to private freeholdings of land "internalizes the economic costs and benefits of many activities and also the decisions including family size within the conjugal co-resident family unit." However, as Frank and McNicoll (1987) point out, the land titles have been granted almost univer- sally to men. This policy may have removed one traditional source of economic security for women, perhaps increasing the need for women to rely on their children. Hence, the net fertility effect due to the transforma- tion of land ownership in Kenya remains uncertain. Schooling and Child Costs Perhaps the fundamental threat to the sub-Saharan high-fertility ratio- nale has to do with changes in the perceived costs of rearing children and, in particular, with the view that schooling is an increasingly necessary as- pect of childrearing, yet so costly that it renders large family sizes impracti- cal. Caldwell and Caldwell (1987:422) have expressed skepticism that the quantity-quality trade-off can be the decisive factor in a sub-Saharan fertil- ity transition:

118 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE So weak [is the link between a man's reproductive decisions and his ex- penses], that there is little parallel to the situation in some other parts of the Third World where educated children will ultimately benefit parents but where there is such a financial crunch during the process of education that numbers must be restricted to ensure that any are sufficiently educated and adequately employed. Yet in the same article, Caldwell and Caldwell (1987:431) acknowledge that relative prices underwent dramatic change in the 1980s; for Nigeria, they note that the 1980s have witnessed growing unemployment, a decline in real wages, the imposition of school fees in all southern states, and most recently an exchange rate adjustment that has trebled the price of imported goods. Throughout the country there is an emphasis in conversation and in the media on the cost of children that encompasses all social classes and that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. Interestingly, changes in child costs seem to have seized the attention of men as well as women, a phenomenon that could not have occurred if men, as is so often alleged, do little to share in the costs of childrearing. Robinson (1992:450), writing on Kenya, notes that men express a "keen awareness of the rising cost of children, especially education costs. They also indicated acute awareness of the growing difficulties in providing for large families and agreed that times were changing." Economic pressures were also the most-discussed issue in focus group discussions among men in Burkina Faso (McGinn et al., 1989a). The much-repeated refrain in these discus- sions was that couples should have children only according to their means, a view that was also emphasized in the Lagos focus groups of Adegbola et al. (l991~. It is very likely that such economic concerns have affected male atti- tudes across the sub-Saharan region. As Robinson (1992:450) observes for Kenyan men, the picture at present is one of inconsistency and contradiction among venous male attitudes. They ex- press "macho" values, but are worried about economic considerations. In short, the study shows traditional values under attack by modern economic considerations. Economic Crises and Their Aftermath If births are indeed analogous to the normal goods of economists, it should not be surprising that over the short term in Africa, income contrac- tions associated with the turmoil of the 1980s might exert an antinatalist

THE HOUSEHOLD' KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 119 effect.34 As two Nigerian focus group participants reflected on the struc- tural adjustment program (SAP) in place since the mid-1980s (Adegbola et al., 1991~: Without any problem of childbearing I don't see the reason why you should do family planning. [But] when there is not enough food one would be compelled to stop. So if you say you will not plan your children, your Tempt thrill Alan it new [l~l,obterl If, ,,,,^ ~ ^~ ,^~^ an, .... There is SAP in Nigeria and this makes us to plan our families. [Yoruba woman, aged 50+1 This antinatalist pressure is perhaps keenest in urban areas, where changes in the costs of food and other necessities have often been dramatic over the past decade.35 If fertility is "normal" in respect to income, however, one would expect a resumption of economic growth to be accompanied by a resumption in family building. As Chapter 3 has argued, the basis for a longer-term fertility decline would then be found only in fundamental changes in rela- tive prices, aspirations, and foes of social organization. One possible change concerns the extent to which the costs of childrearing and schooling can continue to be shared by kin networks. Lesthaeghe (1989a) speculates that in times of general economic crisis the conjugal family is left more isolated and dependent on its own resources than before, and that where assistance from relatives is given there will be harder bar- gaining over the terms of assistance. This view is echoed in the comments of focus group participants in Lagos (Adegbola et al., 1991~: I can't render help to anybody now not to talk of someone else doing same to me. Because I have not eaten, talk less of rendering any help. If anybody eats and has a left-over, that is when he eats and remembers his relatives. My own idea is that everybody, presently with the Nigerian situation, everybody takes care of their responsibilities and mind their own business because in case where my own child and that of his brother falls sick, he'll mind his own business and take care of his own child before taking care of another person's. [Yoruba woman, aged 20-49] Okojie's (1991) findings for Kwara and Bendel states of Nigeria are simi- lar. Her respondents maintained that in the current economic crisis, one ~ A _ ;54For views similar to those expressed below, see Ladipo (1987) on economic circumstances and motivations for family planning in Ife, and Okojie (1991) for Kwara and Bendel states in Nigeria. 35As Chapter 3 notes, little is known about the effects of structural adjustment in rural areas. To the extent that the increased prices farmers receive for their crops increase the value of child farm labor, one might expect structural adjustment to exert a pronatalist effect in rural areas; but high prices might exert an antinatalist effect in urban areas. See Working Group on Demographic Effects of Economic and Social Reversals (1993) for more discussion.

120 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE should not add any additional burdens to one's relatives through child fos- tering. There are also indications that the perceived need for joint conjugal decision making is greater36 in difficult economic times (Adegbola et al., 1991~: You see nowadays, you cannot leave everything for the man. The two should join hands because things are very difficult now. I mean the (eco- nomic) situation of the country is very hard. So, you can't say the husband should or the woman should take full responsibility. So two of them should join hands and do everything accordingly because it is their child. [Igloo man, aged 20-49] These changes in kin relations and conjugal decision malting may well persist into the postcrisis era.37 Contraceptive Innovators Yet how are couples to effect the change to family limitation in the face of opposition from lineage members and elders who may not fully compre- hend the new economic environment? Here a study of female sterilization in Kenya (Bertrand et al., 1989) is instructive.38 In some contrast to the earlier discussion of sterilization in Zaire, Kenyan women and men regard the economic burdens of large families as an important consideration, and the motivations of acceptors of tubal ligation were frankly economic in nature: Respondents mentioned a lack of land, financial constraints, and the expenditures required for children's schooling and daily necessities as being among their major motivations. Regarding the influence of the ex 36It is interesting to note that the Ghanaian male school teachers studied by Oppong (1987b:174) were situated in difficult economic circumstances relative to their expectations: Within this group, contraceptive users "differed from non-users in several aspects of their familial roles and relationships. Greater equality and flexibility in conjugal roles, more marked tendencies towards closure of the conjugal family or a cutting-down of obligations and exchanges associ- ated with kin ties, and more individual assumption of parental tasks and responsibilities, were characteristic features." Perhaps it is this coincidence of stressful economic circumstances and western-influenced views on conjugal obligations that facilitates family limitation. 370ther changes in kin relations may also occur. For instance, Lesthaeghe (1989a) specu- lates that the educational function of child fostering may be hit hard by rising costs and diminishing prospective returns to education, not only for the biological parents but also for the kin network. The implications for fertility, however, are unclear. 38Sterilization is being used here as an extreme example that may shed light on more moder- ate decisions regarding contraception. However, it may be mentioned in passing that the implications of voluntary sterilization for fertility levels in Kenya are considerable, even if sterilization takes place only at the high parities. Frank (1987), relying on 1984 data, estimates that a stop-at-six policy would reduce Kenyan fertility by some 34 percent.

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 121 tended family, which was a decisive factor weighing against sterilization in Zaire, the Kenyan response was rather different. There was a widespread perception among both men and women that the husband's family would be opposed to tubal ligation, "but the solution to this was simply not to inform them. There was strong consensus that this was a private matter between husband and wife" (Bertrand et al., 1989:286~. The results of Adegbola et al. (1991) for Lagos are similar. When asked about the role of the extended family in matters of family size and contraceptive use, a young Yoruba woman replied: What I know is that the husband's relatives must not have a knowledge of this issue. We young ones of nowadays that have just gotten married do family planning and if the husband's relatives know about it, it is the husband's mother who will look for another wife for her son. She will call her son and say "This your wife does not want to give birth again when I am still alive. I should look for someone else for you." They will cause confusion between the husband and wife. It is not a proper thing to let the husband's relatives know about it, neither is it a proper thing to let the wife's relatives know about. Both relatives must not intervene. Thus, contraceptive innovators are more than aware of the pressures from the extended family that can be brought to bear upon them, but can them- selves devise ways of evading such pressures. Summary We must emphasize in closing this section that many of the arguments just made, which suggest the possibility of fertility decline and increases in contraceptive method use, remain speculative and are grounded not in large and statistically representative samples but in small qualitative or anecdotal studies. Moreover, the factors that we have emphasized do not operate with equal force across Afnca.39 They are surely more important in urban areas and among the educated, and doubtless vary considerably by social and economic circumstances. Furthermore, some observers male very different predictions regarding the effects of economic crisis and modernization on fertility. For instance, Frank and McNicoll (1987) argue that far from reinforcing joint conjugal decision making and helping to internalize costs and benefits, economic 39In addition, we do not expect these factors to have much effect on groups affected by involuntary sterility, because they may not have been able to meet their past fertility goals. As a result, these groups will likely be less receptive to family planning. Evidence from Zaire, for example, suggests that communities with historically high rates of primary sterility have expe- rienced smaller fertility declines than communities in which fertility has been very high (Sala- Diakanda, 1980).

. 122 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE modernization in Kenya will more likely serve to further disassociate hus- bands and wives. Frank and McNicoll speculate that family systems may increasingly depart from a lineage basis without ever becoming more nuclear and conjugal in orientation.40 They envision a future for Kenya in which family structure comes to resemble the Caribbean mode of visiting unions and spousal autonomy. Boserup (1985) has also questioned the logic by which reductions in kin solidarity (as evidenced in child fostering, for instance) are expressed in lower fertility. She notes that in Bangladesh, a lack of wider kin support mechanisms and a greater dependence of parents on their children are ad- vanced as explanations for continuing high fertility. The principal theme that emerges from the discussion above is the great variation across sub-Saharan Africa in receptivity to fertility limitation and family planning. In some groups the high-fertility rationale remains largely intact. For others, however, the current economic situation has uncovered a demand for postponement or delay in family building, if not for lower lifetime fertility. And in certain selected subpopulations, principally in urban areas and among those better educated or with higher educational aspirations for their children, the profound changes of the past decade in incomes, relative pnces, and social organization have produced a desire for lower lifetime fertility. LOCAL SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND THE DIFFUSION OF FAMILY PLANNING We have argued that among other factors, the economic crisis of the 1980s in parts of Africa has presented programs to increase contraceptive use with a window of opportunity. Yet as noted in Chapter 3, the irony of the situation is that the same economic forces that have opened the window on family planning have also reduced the governmental resources available to exploit the opening in settings where fertility decline is a policy goal. The challenge for policy in such settings, then, is how to seize on the themes and motivations brought out by economic stagnation and crisis in a cost-efficient way, recognizing that initially the appeal of family limitation will not be in evidence across the full socioeconomic spectrum, and even the appeal of birth spacing via modern contraception may be resisted in some traditional quarters. One proposal, advanced by Lesthaeghe (1989a), 40L`esthaeghe (1989c) notes that in Lesotho and Botswana, weakening of traditional marriage patterns led not to increasing conjugality, but rather to a greater reliance by women on their own kinship groups and less reliance on husbands.

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 123 is to exploit the concept of diffusion and the potential presented by sub- Saharan forms of local social organization. It is clear that the provision of information and the social legitimation of modern contraception will be crucial to the prospects for service deliv- ery. Given the budgetary constraints and limitations of personnel with which sub-Saharan governments must cope, national delivery strategies must tap a variety of local social networks, including the private for-profit sector and nongovernmental organizations. What can the existing forms of social organization contribute? A great variety of local groups and networks exist. Some of these grass-roots networks have their own roots in precolonial dual-sex systems;4i others derive from the colonial era or have a more recent vintage. The following types of groups are of interest: (1) traditional birth attendants; (2) modern-day counterparts of the female secret societies in West Africa;42 (3) producer cooperatives and other modern-day descendants of traditional local work parties;43 (4) occupational groups, the most important of these 4lThe dual-sex systems described by Lesthaeghe (1989a) are cases in which female social- political organizations are a mirror image of male organizations. There were female counter- parts to the male paramount chief or regional chiefs, and female counterparts descending to the level of local work parties. Such groups would have a "queen," for instance, at the top of market women's associations. In middle, eastern, and southern Africa, both male and female branches of the dual-sex system are thought to have been much less developed. Thus, in these areas, greater relative importance was accorded to associations introduced during the colonial period: churches and government-sponsored associations. See Arhin (1983:93) on the traditional dual-sex system among the Akan of Ghana, where "female stools complemented the hierarchy of male stools." As in Nigeria (Okonjo, 1983), the British disrupted this system, failing to recognize women on their chief lists or as members of the native authority councils and courts. Such also appears to have been the case in Cute d'Ivoire for the Baule (Etienne, 1983). 42For example, in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Cute d'Ivoire, these societies were powerful in matters of procreation, infant and maternal health, education, local politics, and religion, and have been enlisted in formal health projects (Lesthaeghe, 1989a). Wipper (1984:74) notes that older women from the powerful land-owning lineages in Sande tended to be the most important midwives, and there was an important element of patronage: "Women prefer to patronize midwives of powerful lineages and those who occupy important leadership positions in the Sande society because they believe these women possess the most powerful medicine which will protect their own life and their baby's life. Women are highly dependent on the midwives' knowledge of obstetrics and gynecology and this knowledge is jealously guarded." Steady (1981:33), considering the Bondo or Sande secret societies in Sierra Leone and Liberia, says that "even in areas such as Freetown where; on account of urbanization much of the sacred aspect of Bondo societies is diluted rendering them more like voluntary associations and social agencies, they still serve to regulate relationships between the sexes through the maintenance of sororal bonds." 43Ladipo (1987) discusses family planning as a component of a women's cooperative in Nigeria.

124 FACTORS AFFECTING CONTRA CEPTIVE USE being the western African market women's associations;44 (S) mutual aid societies and rotating credit networks;45 (6) a plethora of colonial-era asso- ciations including Christian missions, youth associations (Girl Guides and Boy Scouts, YMCA and YWCA), and church women's groups, the latter being particularly vigorous in eastern and southern Africa;46 and (7) local associations with roots in government initiatives.47 Lesthaeghe (1989a:498) argues that with regard to family planning, the "main function of grass-roots networks is to discuss the subject and to legitimize contraception in the process, thereby eventually developing their own referral system, more than in their direct financial sponsoring of family planning clinics." National Female Political Associations Lesthaeghe (1989a) is skeptical about the family planning potential of national-level female political associations. He notes that these are often dominated by elites, who are widely divorced in interests and social status from the grass-roots associations that operate at the local level.48 Further- more, local associations may strive to maintain a respectful distance from national organizations. The local associations have "an interest in coming to terms with current regimes (especially if some of their activities are sponsored by governments), but also an interest in never becoming too closely identified with the political powers of.the moment" (Lesthaeghe, 1 989a:497~. 44Lesthaeghe (1989a) notes that in eastern and middle Africa, by contrast to western Africa, trading is done primarily by men, and such powerful female groups are lacking. 45These include the esusu savings and credit groups of the Yoruba; their counterparts among the Ga (Robertson, 1976); rotating marriage and childbirth associations or associations that fund pilgrimages to Mecca, as among the Dioula of northern Cote d'Ivoire (Lewis, 1976). Wipper (1984) also mentions prostitutes' associations as mutual aid associations in Zaire, Ghana, and Nigeria, and beer-brewers' associations in Nairobi. 46Wipper (1984) discusses Protestant church associations in Sierra Leone (also see Steady, 1976); there are counterpart Muslim associations in Freetown, with interests in mutual aid. Muslim women's associations of Mombasa (descendants of the dance associations of the late nineteenth century and the colonial era) fall in this category, since they have taken interest in child welfare, adult literacy, and so on. See Strobel (1976) for a historical account. 47For instance, the so-called corn mill societies of Cameroon were government initiated in the 1950s; these first began around corn mills rented to the village by government and later expanded their functions (Wipper, 1984). 48Lesthaeghe's point is illustrated by the history of the largest women's association in Kenya, Maendeleo ya Wanawake (Progress for Women), as recounted in Wipper (1984). An initial militancy and close attention to the needs of its rural clubs degenerated as positions in the association began to be taken up by elite wives. A similar fate has met Muslim women's groups in Mombasa (Strobe!, 1976).

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 125 Market Associations Certain creative efforts have been made to tap the potential of local- level market women's associations in Ibadan, Ilorin, Lagos, and Accra (Center for Population and Family Health, 1989, l990a-c; Webb et al., 1991~. These market-based distribution projects employed market traders, with requisite training in family planning service delivery, to retail contraceptives in the market, usually (although not always) in combination with other health treatments such as oral rehydration therapy and treatment for malaria. The projects were all of a pilot nature, but displayed considerable potential (see Chapter 5~. In the case of Ibadan, market associations are a relatively new phenom- enon; they may have arisen in response to growing local government inter- vention in market affairs and a need for an organization to represent trad- ers' interests vis-a-vis external bodies. The market associations in Accra were predominantly women's associations, headed by a market "queen," whereas in Ibadan men tended to dominate the upper reaches of the organi- zation. It proved important that vendors of contraceptives be seen as legitimate agents of a major health institution (in the Ibadan case, it was the Univer- sity College Hospital), no doubt because of the prevalence in western Af- rica of fake drugs and quackery. The research on contraceptive sales showed that the greatest proportion of clients were fellow traders rather than cus- tomers of the market, and many sales were made outside the market to neighbors of traders. Thus, the Ibadan project generated considerable diffu- sion of information and delivery of services, often through routes that were not at all anticipated by the researchers. In the Lagos project, the scheme was conceived as a two-way referral system, whereby private and govern- ment clinics would inform their clients about the marketing program, and at the market, those clients with problems, contraindications, or in search of other methods were told of the clinic system. Local Women's Groups Watkins (1991) and Hammerslough (1991a) have begun to explore whether local women's groups in Africa can provide a vehicle for the diffusion of family planning information. Hammerslough's analyses of the Kenyan DHS show that women who are members of such groups are more likely to know about modern methods of family planning and are also more likely to have used such methods. But the policy content of Hammerslough's analysis goes deeper. It appears that women who are not themselves group mem- bers, but who reside in communities in which such groups are important, also are more likely to know and to use contraception. This pattern is

26 FA CTORS AFFECTING CONTRACEPTIVE USE precisely what one expects to see in a setting where the diffusion of infor- mation is taking place. As any one socioeconomic group comes to adopt innovative family planning behavior, knowledge of the new behavior begins to spread via what are termed "weak ties" to other socioeconomic strata. To the extent that the initial adopters serve as reference groups for those contemplating innovative behavior, a diffusion process is set in motion that may promise a broader adoption of contraception. The key point is that a diffusion process may very well begin with a few selected socioeconomic subgroups, but the process of social interchange extends the knowledge of innovative behavior along the links or weak ties among socioeconomic groups. Individuals must still evaluate, with reference to their own individual socioeconomic situations, the advisability of family limitation. That is, enhanced aware- ness does not translate automatically into contraceptive adoption. But to the extent that contraceptive adopters reduce the uncertainty surrounding this new behavior, and provide a concrete demonstration as to its benefits and costs, the broad base of attitudes and preferences concerning contracep- tive use may begin to shift. As far as we are aware, no one has yet investigated the role of men's groups in regard to diffusion. Yet study after study has emphasized the need to enlist African men in family limitation, and there is ample evidence of male receptivity to the economic rationale for limitation that the current economic situation has brought to prominence. Hence, this would appear to be a promising avenue for research and program development. Local Government Some observers remain doubtful about the likely role that African gov- ernments can play in the delivery of contraceptive services. Part of the issue is that state formation is so recent in much of sub-Saharan Africa, even by comparison to Asia; also, even within the complex and hierarchial African states that developed in precolonial times, there was little sustained bureaucratic penetration by the larger state to the local level (Hyden, 1990~. Nor are African nations now in a position to use family planning as a part of the apparatus of nation building, in contrast to India, Indonesia, Korea, Singapore, and the Peoples's Republic of China as noted by Lesthaeghe (1989a).49 Evidently, then, a key issue in the delivery of services will involve the decentralization of government authority and the devolution of 49Lesthaeghe (1989a:488) notes one interesting exception, in that "the present, allegedly strong program performance in Zimbabwe is a part of the ZANU government extending and consolidating its control over the country."

THE HOUSEHOLD, KINSHIP, AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT 127 responsibilities to local levels, which may be more receptive and perhaps more flexible in responding to local concerns (Frank and McNicoll, 1987~. The case of Nigeria will bear watching because there the national govern- ment has given great emphasis to the creation of local political and eco- nomic structures. Summary In short, it is possible that local organizations constituted for other purposes could be enlisted in the diffusion of family planning information and services in Africa. The process of involving such organizations in family planning efforts can only happen gradually, and no doubt will be met in many cases with political resistance or indifference. Yet as outlined in Chapter 5, the 1980s witnessed a striking change in the receptivity of cer- tain African populations and governments to family planning, and the possi- bilities for tapping the energies of local organizations deserve continued exploration. CONCLUSION An analysis of African social organization clearly points to several factors supporting high fertility, namely, the high value attached to the perpetuation of the lineage; the importance of children as a means of gain- ing access to resources, particularly land; the use of kinship networks to share the costs and benefits of children, primarily through child fostering; and the weak nature of conjugal bonds. Changing economic circumstances, however, such as growing scarcity of land in areas with high population density, increased schooling and child costs, and perhaps deteriorating economies, are challenging this high-fertility rationale. These changing circumstances are resulting in lower fertility desires among certain populations, particu- larly those with high levels of education or with high educational aspira- tions for their children and those living in urban areas. The high-fertility rationale has not yet disappeared from the scene, to be sure, but it is cer- tainly giving way. Thus, our summary judgment, hedged as it must be with qualifications and caveats, is that sub-Saharan Africa is entering a new era of fertility control.

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This book discusses current trends in contraceptive use, socioeconomic and program variables that affect the demand for and supply of children, and the relationship of increased contraceptive use to recent fertility declines.

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