Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hertrich, Véronique

Titel

Trends in Age at Marriage and the Onset of Fertility Transition in sub-Saharan Africa

Ist Teil von

• Population and development review, 2017-05, Vol.43 (S1), p.112-137

Ort / Verlag

New York: Wiley Subscription Services, Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Quelle

Wiley-Blackwell Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Over the last 40 years, the question of the “African exception” has regularly come to the forefront in the discussion of fertility trends. In the 1980s, there was uncertainty about when fertility decline would commence throughout the region: while fertility was declining at a steady pace in Latin America and Asia, decline was evident in only a minority of sub-Saharan countries and, indeed, some countries showed fertility increase. As of the 1990s there was evidence of fertility decline in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and it appeared that sub-Saharan Africa was following the historical pattern of the other major regions. With a slow pace of fertility decline, or even stagnation at relatively high levels in various countries (Bongaarts 2008), the question of Africa’s exceptionality has resurfaced. The fertility level in sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s highest (5.1 children per woman versus 2.2 in Latin America and Asia in 2010–15; United Nations 2015a) (see Table 1). Compared with the experience of other world regions, sub-Saharan Africa stands apart not only in terms of fertility levels, but also with regard to a flatter age pattern due to longer birth intervals, the persistence of high ideal family size, and a low level of contraceptive use (Bongaarts and Casterline 2013). Sub-Saharan Africa also deviates from standard international patterns in terms of nuptiality. The traditional nuptiality regime has been defined by a particular combination of features, both for first marriage (early marriage for girls, a large age gap between spouses, almost universal marriage for both sexes) and for later conjugal life (polygamy, prompt and widespread remarriage for widowed and divorced women of childbearing age) (Lesthaeghe et al. 1989; United Nations 1988, 1990; van de Walle 1968).