Sex, Gender, Becoming - PULP

Agency amidst adversity: poverty and women’s reproductive lives 95
transition in Africa 10 and the extent to which African fertility regimes
were beginning to transform in line with trends followed by the rest
of the world. In some senses, transition theory arguments have been
revived, and assessments of the success of development initiatives,
literacy, media messages, imported technologies and, generally, the
role of modernising institutions in these transitions have been central
foci of attention. As an illustration, note the optimism with which
Robinson 11 speaks of changes occurring in Kenya. He says: ‘it now
does appear that couples in Kenya are conceptualising an ideal family
size, and that a rational weighing of costs and benefits now does
frequently occur’. He links these to the processes of modernisation
and argues that Kenyan society finds itself ‘in collision’ with customs
promoting pro-natalism. Health, immunisation and development
programmes are improving child survival rates and the cost of having
children is increasing. At the same time, contraception is becoming
cheaper and more easily obtainable. The claim is that with the
continuation of these interventions alongside the modernisation of
Kenya, fertility will continue to decline. Similarly, Gaisie 12 says of the
Botswana fertility decline: ‘Botswana’s experience shows that a firm
economic base providing a sustainably adequate standard of living for
the people and a well organised family planning programme can, to a
large extent, narrow the gap between fertility and mortality ...’ With
respect to the South African transition, Caldwell and Caldwell 13
suggest (drawing on social capillary arguments) that fertility decline
was modest in the apartheid era because South Africa was a caste
society, with black people restricted from climbing up occupational
ladders. The proposition offered is that post-apartheid South Africa is
likely to witness significant shifts in fertility as a consequence of
general improvements in living conditions and socio-economic
opportunities, particularly for women.
Whilst the dominant arguments continue in the 2000s to reiterate the
crucial role of socio-economic development to fertility transition,
little attention has been paid to less popular positions such as those
put forward by Lesthaeghe in 1989. Lesthaeghe posed an interesting
but speculative question about the possible initiation of a ‘crisis-led’
fertility decline in African countries experiencing the effects of
severe economic downturns, natural disasters and the ‘shaking of
aspirations’. He raised the argument that fertility transitions could
occur in environments where living conditions do not appear to be
10
WTS Gould & M Brown ‘A fertility transition in sub-Saharan Africa’ (1996)
11
International journal of population geography 1 2.
WC Robinson ‘Kenya enters the fertility transition’ (1992) Population Studies 445
12
46.
SK Gaisie ‘Fertility transition in Botswana’ (1998) 16 Journal of Contemporary
13
African Studies 277 292.
JC Caldwell & P Caldwell ‘The South African fertility decline’ (1993) 19(2)
Population and development review 225 250.