Sex, Gender, Becoming - PULP

114 Kammila Naidoo
explore complex behaviours in diverse social and economic microsettings
despite the analytical benefits of such undertakings. The
demographic enterprise is currently giving rise to concerted efforts to
develop more unifying and universalistic explanations for fertility
decline, 66 at the same time as anthropological demographers are
reiterating the necessity to recognise the cultural embeddedness and
specificity of fertility behaviour in different socio-economic
contexts. 67 It could be argued that within the African, or developing
countries context, a lot more exploration of local realities and the
way they impact on ‘decisions’ and ‘choices’ is required before more
universalistic explanations can be sought.
With respect to the Winterveld case study, I would like to argue that
the issues of domestic violence and economic insecurity combine to
make Lesthaeghe’s hypothesis of a crisis-led or hardship-driven
fertility transition particularly relevant. At its most basic level, it
relies on ‘frustrated aspirations’ because of expectations of changes
in economic circumstances but continuing experience of ‘rising costs
of childrearing, reduced prospective utility of educated children, and
declining opportunities for adults in general’. 68 Women in Winterveld,
who have lived with uncertainties and insecurities in the past,
continue to live with deep disappointment in the state and local
structures as few social and economic changes are witnessed in the
present. Inability to find independent work leads to attempts to elicit
support from familial and other social networks. Lesthaeghe 69 argues
that ‘it is not at all clear whether the added strain leads to tighter
solidarity and mutual sacrifice or to harder bargaining’. Mutual
sacrifice and harder bargaining co-exist in Winterveld. Increasingly,
though, the space for bargaining is declining as families and networks
resist child-rearing responsibilities and familial obligations. ‘Greater
dependency of children on female incomes’, which Lesthaeghe 70 cites
as an important factor intensifying a sense of crisis, is becoming the
norm in Winterveld.
It is not being argued that fertility decline in South Africa is largely a
consequence of a struggle against poverty and hardship. Of course,
different factors, some associated with ‘economic improvement’,
might be operating at different levels (and in different contexts) to
shape the general picture of lowered fertility. However, central to a
more qualitative study of reproduction and to an understanding of
what these different factors are, would be the need to broaden
66 J Caldwell ‘The global fertility transition: The need for a unifying theory’ (1997)
67
23 Population and development review 803.
DI Kertzer & T Fricke Anthropological demography. Toward a new synthesis
(1997).
68 RJ Lesthaeghe in Lesthaeghe (n 8 above) 477-478.
69
RJ Lesthaeghe 478.
70 As above.