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NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • Why Has the Demographic Transition Stalled in Sub-Saharan Africa?

    August 7, 2013 By Elizabeth Leahy Madsen
    Ibadan Streets

    In a recent post on the new United Nations population projections, I discussed the risk in assuming that countries in sub-Saharan Africa will progress through the demographic transition at a pace similar to other regions. Making this assumption is questionable because fertility decline in Africa has generally proceeded more slowly than in other parts of the world, with several cases of “stalls” and even small fertility increases over time.

    While some countries have completed the transition from high to low fertility very quickly, others have stalled along the way

    However, Africa’s demography is by no means uniform, and some countries and areas have developed distinctive fertility trends. At the regional level, the Southern African countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland) had an estimated total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.6 children per woman in 2005-2010, about half the level of Eastern, Western, and Central Africa. Within those three high-fertility regions, the clear exception has been Rwanda, where a 25 percent fertility decline between 2005 and 2010 is the first of that speed and magnitude in sub-Saharan Africa.

    What differentiates the countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are recording steady fertility declines from those where fertility has been stagnant or even rising? To explore this question further, I separated sub-Saharan African countries with multiple recent Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) into two groups based on their fertility transition status.

    Less Than Half of Sub-Saharan Africa Shows Significant Fertility Decline

    Researchers have identified a decades-long process, called the “demographic transition,” during which populations move from high fertility and high mortality rates; to a period of low mortality rates and high fertility; and finally to both low fertility and low mortality rates, which creates the temporary opportunity for a “demographic dividend.” While some countries have completed the transition from high to low fertility very quickly, others have stalled along the way.

    There are several possible methods of defining a fertility stall. A simple one is employed here: Sub-Saharan African countries were classified in the stalling group if the annual pace of fertility decline between their two most recent DHS reports was below 0.05 child per woman, about half the historical average rate of decline for developing countries in the late 20th century. This threshold represents a very slow rate of decline: The fertility rate in a country with an annual decline of 0.05 would take 20 years to drop by one child.

    Table 1: Status of the Demographic Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa

    Of the 22 countries included in the analysis, 10 recorded an annual fertility decline of at least 0.05 child per woman between the two most recent surveys and are considered to comprise the group in transition. The remaining 12 countries are experiencing a fertility stall; half of them actually recorded a small increase.

    As shown in Table 1, most of the countries with stalling fertility are located in West Africa. However, geography is not likely to be a cause of fertility patterns. What differentiates these countries in ways that may be relevant to their contrasting fertility transitions? The DHS provides rich data not only on fertility rates, but also on preferences and behaviors among women and men of childbearing age.

    Stalling Countries Are High-Fertility Countries

    The countries where TFR is stalling or increasing have a higher average fertility rate, at 5.6 children per woman, than the transition group, at 4.9. This may mean that fertility is more likely to be stagnant or fluctuating at higher levels and to then decline steadily once it has crossed below a certain threshold. Zimbabwe, which has the second-lowest TFR among all 22 countries but also experienced the most significant increase in fertility between its two most recent surveys, is a clear exception.

    Only two-thirds of married women in Niger and Nigeria have knowledge of modern contraception

    Knowledge of at least one modern contraceptive method is nearly universal – above 90 percent in 18 of the 22 countries. A few countries in West Africa are outliers in this regard: Only two-thirds of married women in Niger and Nigeria have knowledge of modern contraception. In Chad, only 49 percent of married women have contraceptive knowledge, an extremely low level. Chad also has one of the lowest rates of modern contraceptive use in the world, at less than two percent.

    The stalling countries share several characteristics of high-fertility countries compared to those in the transition group. Women in the middle of their reproductive years (ages 30 to 34) had their first child about six months earlier in the stalling countries, at age 19.5, compared to age 20 among the transition countries. Modern contraceptive use among married women is much lower among the stalling countries, with a median of 11 percent, compared to 28 percent among the transition countries.

    Fertility preferences are important in shaping individual fertility behavior, and in most of sub-Saharan Africa, women and men prefer to have large families. Still, ideal family size is notably higher among the countries with fertility stalls, at an average of 6.0 children per woman, compared to 4.6 in the transition countries. In Chad and Niger, two of the stalling countries, married women report an ideal family size of nine children. Among the transition countries, ideal family sizes range from 3.6 children in Rwanda to 5.5 in Senegal.

    Large Desired Family Sizes, But Also Opposition and Health Concerns

    In the stalling countries, women are actually somewhat more likely to have fewer children than their stated ideal. In Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, actual TFR is at least one child per woman below the mean ideal number of children, indicating that on average, desire to use family planning to limit childbearing is probably weak, although there may be interest in birth spacing. In only one of the stalling countries (Zambia) are women having at least one child more, on average, than their ideal family size; this is the case in three of the transition countries (Malawi, Rwanda, and Uganda) and suggests likely demand for contraception in those places.

    Previous models have shown that ideal family size and attitudes about family planning are important in countries’ national fertility transitions. The Demographic and Health Surveys ask women who are not contraceptive users to identify their main reason for non-use. Women’s responses can be grouped into five broad categories:

    • Fertility-related: a woman believes that she cannot or will not get pregnant;
    • Opposition: she, her partner, or religious beliefs oppose family planning;
    • Knowledge: she does not know a method or how to obtain one;
    • Access: she lacks physical or financial access to obtain a method;
    • Health: she has health concerns about contraception or its side effects.

    Although not a perfect measure, this information can help identify challenges that family planning programs face in expanding access to and use of services.

    In the stalling countries, the percentage of women who say they are not using family planning because they want more children is about twice as high as in transition countries (22 to 12 percent). When these women are subtracted, the breakdown in reasons for non-use of family planning is fairly similar among the two groups. About one-quarter of non-users in all countries cite fertility-related reasons; that is, they are not using contraception because they believe they do not need to. Another one-fifth of women in all countries cite opposition, a taxing problem for family planning programs to overcome. In Nigeria and Senegal, opposition is the main reason provided by 40 percent of non-users.

    The only reason for non-use of family planning that shows major differences between countries in fertility transition and those with stalling fertility is that of health concerns. Health-related reasons are offered by an average of 27 percent of women in transition countries, tied with fertility-related issues as the most common reason for non-use. In countries with fertility stalls, a relatively low 16 percent of women who are not contraceptive users cite health reasons.

    Figure 1: Reasons for Non-Use of Family Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa

    Breaking From the Mold

    In addition to the behaviors and preferences discussed here, many other factors could contribute to the variation in fertility transitions seen in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, the quality of national family planning programs in terms of funding, human resources, logistics, and political commitment, likely has significant influence. More broadly, demographers have found that increases in women’s education and improvements in infant and child mortality contribute to faster fertility declines. This is logical and highlights the contributions of multi-sectoral social development policies to demographic change.  Education affects fertility through contraceptive use and age at marriage, and mortality decline precedes fertility decline in the demographic transition.

    Not only are demographic transitions within Africa not following the mold of other regions, they are not following one another

    The heterogeneity of African fertility transitions and their variance from historical patterns are important for planning and implementing family planning programs, but also have far-reaching development implications. The diverse reasons that women do not use contraception, as shown above, indicate an opportunity for governments and their partners to provide better information and education to potential users of family planning, to ensure that the quality of health services provided is high, and to improve the overall policy environment for health and for family planning in particular.

    When making broader projections and plans that incorporate demography, it is critical to remember that previous expectations about what will happen in Africa may not hold, and fertility is unlikely to decline dramatically while desired family size remains high. The stalling fertility transitions across much of sub-Saharan Africa have motivated recent upward revisions in projections of the continent’s population, directly affecting the resources that will be required to improve economic well-being, human capital, and social resilience among a youthful, rapidly growing population. Not only are demographic transitions within Africa not following the mold of other regions, they are not following one another.

    Elizabeth Leahy Madsen is a consultant on political demography for the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and senior technical advisor at Futures Group.

    Sources: Bongaarts (2008, 1978), Ezeh et al. (2009), Kodzi et al. (2010), Lee (2003), MEASURE DHS, Shapiro and Gebreselassie (2008), UN Population Division.

    Photo Credit: Market in Ibadan, Nigeria, courtesy of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. Chart and Table Credit: Elizabeth Leahy Madsen. 

    Topics: Africa, Cameroon, Chad, demography, development, family planning, featured, gender, Ghana, global health, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, maternal health, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, population, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, UN, Zambia, Zimbabwe
    • Mallory

      (1) There is a SECOND classical population outcome that many policymakers and sectors of academia refuse to acknowledge, contemplate, or mention – and this OTHER classical outcome is known as “Climb-and-collapse” – and in this latter outcome, the exploding population does NOT undergo a gradual, happy, and blissful “transition” into the wished-for “s-curve” envisioned by by demographic transition theorists. Instead these OTHER populations in real-world biology continue to rocket skyward along the y-axis of their population-explosion J-curves into conditions of radical and unsustainable overshoot, followed by sudden collapses involving 99%-plus die-offs and/or even worse mass mortalities. (A preponderance of powerful scientific evidence, by the way, strongly suggests that viewed on a worlwide basis, humankind is deepy, deeply embarked upon this latter trajectory.)

      (2) Over the last two decades, some sectors of academia have seized upon the notion of “the” demographic transition – as though it were some universal, automatic, and inevitable outcome that happens in all cases, and imagine that “it” must and will unfailingly occur in all cultures all the time, regardless of their cultural traditions and beliefs, etc., and that some such transtion can and must always and inevitably occur, plus do so in-time to avert overshoot and collapse outcomes. In fact, science and medicine continue to instigate NEW mortality reductions over and over again with every new antibiotic and advance in life-extension – so that in such cases, “the” demograpic transtion is not a necessary event, and is not a “one-time” phenomenon, and each such advance repeatedly delays or cancels out population stabilizations anticipated on the basis of fertility declines.

      (3) And now for the bad news – the famous “s-curve” transition graphs that populate so much demographic literature over the past two decades are essentially fraudulent in that the authors of such graphs typically do not BEGIN their graphs until some recent decade such as the 1950s or 1970s, bring it up the present, and then project their own hopes, wishes, wishful suppositions, and guesstimates several additional decades into the future. (We note that it is generally not permissible in science to OMIT 9,900 years of data in order to force-fit one’s data into a preferred theoretical outcome.)

      In fact, if one simply graphs humankind’s worldwide population data over the past 10,000 years, the graph that results is an EXTREME and quite-pronounced J-CURVE – (which should give us pause, perhaps, since up until now the two most famous J-curves in all of human history have both been atomic detonations) – (did we mention that J-curves have a decided tendency to flatten and obliterate everything around themselves in every direction, and that humankind’s J-CURVE is a worldwide phenomenon?)

      (4) Some in academia (economics, statisticians and many demographers?) like to assure us that our “rate” of population growth of population growth is “slowing down.” (We should note here that even J-CURVE fission progressions are finite phenomena and do not, therefore, rocket upward forever, but actually begin to slow-down toward the end of their progressions. In these J-CURVE slowing cases, however, the gradual slowing does NOT signal a happy and gradual transition to equilibrial bliss with sustainability, and peace, justice, and prosperity for all. Instead, the gradual slowing seen in a J-CURVE progressions characterizes that last few remaining moments before the numbers in the progression PLUMMET to a value approaching ZERO.)

      (5) Lastly there is a decidedly-dangerous (and misleading?) “untruth” concealed in
      suppositions embedded in statements that seek to placate us with assertions that humankind’s “rate” of population growth is “slowing down.” For example, in 1981, with a worldwide population of roughly 4.4 BILLION, world population was growing larger at a rate of roughly 80 million EXTRA persons per year. By 2011, however, our worldwide numbers reached 7 BILLION (an INCREASE of 2.6 BILLION together with the eradications, damage, and wastes of each) and world population was growing larger at a rate of roughly 83 million EXTRA persons per year. (Earth’s biospheric life-support machinery and natural systems might be forgiven, perhaps, for not considering that to be “slowing down?”)

      Imagine that you and your fellow passengers are on a bus headed toward a precipice at 80 km/hr. After checking his data, however, the driver, who is a statistician, informs you that: (a) you are now much closer to the precipice, and (b) the bus is now headed off the precipice at 83 km/hr. The driver seeks to reassure you, however, by pointing out that the vehicle’s PERCENTAGE “rate” of velocity increase is gradually slowing and could eventually result in “equilibrium” a little further down the road … (comforting and reassuring, isn’t it?).

      It is, however, the FAULT of those silly biospheric life-support sysems for never having taken a statistics course, isn’t it? For if they had, they would realize that the ever-widening and ever-worsening levels of damage, wastes, and eradications that they think they are experiencing are simply a temporary illusion.

      SUMMARY: Biologically-speaking, Earth’s planetary carrying capacity for a modern industrialized humanity with a prosperous standard of living for all is on the order of roughly TWO billion or even less. and today we now exceeded SEVEN billion (having just added FIVE additional billions in less than a single human lifetime) and are headed toward 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, or 15.8 billion by the end of this century. And again speaking biologically, anything even approaching these latter higher-end numbers constitutes the demographic and biospheric equivalent of a collision trajectory with a near-earth asteroid.

      For more on these matters, visit Biospherics Literacy and Sustainability 101 – Five PowerPoints / Five Days at http://www.scribd.com/doc/118659074/Population-Carrying-Capacity-and-Limiting-Factors-ppt-version .

      • Barbara

        Very good (especially as I agree with you). Complacency seems to be a necessary part of the CV for geographers and many demographers. What are you doing to get these points out there?

      • Tony

        Mallory things you have raised here too are very important too and should be considerded critically in every argument am new in population studies but what you have discussed here i have personally encountered this in field as i execute my work family planing especially when handling population and sustained developement.

      • noanswers

        Earth will not be obliterated. However, much of Africa has potential for evisceration. If this chaos can be limited to this region, and immigration can be reduced to a rate that allows for cultural assimilation, then the destruction will be confined to said region. If Africa is to devour itself, then let it be so. If we can stop it, then good. If we cannot, then it must at least be contained.

    • Danilo Bertocchi

      Excellent analysis. Education of women is key!

      • Barbara

        Education alone is not enough – it has been argued that financial autonomy or jobs are more important. I have often seen it put out that women’s choices about fertility might be magically enhanced if all girls and women are herded into classrooms, so we need not bother about health and family planning services! I don’t think that’s what you mean, though.

        • Danilo Bertocchi

          Barbara, I think about the same topic. Of course, to get a good job allowing financial autonomy, we need a good education. So many women are financial dependant without job and get pregnant. The big picture much more complex: cultural factors, middle age tradition a child marriage or excision practice are hurting women and making dependant. Telecom expansion is a main development trigger in these areas

          • Barbara

            Thanks, Danilo. I agree it’s usually very complicated – I just don’t agree with those who say that education alone is “the” solution, although it’s an important part of it.

            • ines92130

              An important trend is that the international community is also increasingly recognizing the power of microfinance programs combined with education for women in increasing nations’ CPR.

    • Tony

      It will not be nted with great concern that mortality rates in household where mothers are well empowered have declined great deal in the recent past and issues of reproductive health rights have also greater impact in a scenerio where women are well educated or partially educated. i will say this with fear of contradictions that we still have two worlds developed and developing apart from the two split we also have another issues to consider on issues of fertility that race, social class, culture and goverment policy on child birth. tonpoll@yahoo.com

    • zleo99

      I wonder if women’s desire for large families would decrease if the countries they lived in did not receive food aid.

      • john smith

        womens education + child mortality decrease = lower fertility. feeding them doesnt make them have more kids. it lets them go to school.

      • Selorm Charles Deku

        It is surprising that people condemn things they don’t understand.

      • Ofentse Augustine

        they will have more children because child mortality will be high due to malnutrition
        ….so they will more to increase the chances of having children to take care of them as they age….it called child security

        • http://www.id7519336.sexykf.website jacomalan

          ofentseaugustine ):

      • Darlington Mafa

        IM sure you dont understand africa … in population studies there is what we call insurance births … because of high infant mortality …

    • Kenneth Ferland

      One of the core motivations for large family size it to have enough financially successful children to care for the parents in old age. Because some children may die before their parents, or may be financially unsuccessful it is necessary to have a large number to hedge the risk, the financial cost of raising children counter-balances this.

      Anything which makes children more likely to survive and to be successful will lower desired family size. If in addition these things cost the parents money upfront they may have an even higher impact then if they were provided as a public good either through taxation or international charity.

      A possible means to short-circuit this whole hedging process would be to institute real state pension programs in Africa, this would releave the parents of most of the risk of senior poverty while costing very little due to the extremely low elderly population.

    • Peter Capen

      While concern about the growth of the human population in the developing countries especially is legitimate, the issue of human numbers cannot be discussed without a parallel discussion of the consumption rates in the developed world. Unfortunately, much of the resource development in the Third World does not as much contribute to an increase in living standards there and social programs such as universal education for girls and affordable family planning, as it does to maintain the level of consumption in the affluent industrial nations, as well as the rich global elites. Moreover, the United States policies towards funding family planning in the Third World have at more subject to the political swings and ideology, rather that out of a consensus and common sense for the poor elsewhere.

    • Atnafu

      The poorer people are, the higher their fertility! Letting them hungry can hardly be a recipe for lower fertility. Unless, ZAGeorge, you are arguing that food aid is actually making people poorer? I am not sure how effective aid is in getting people out of poverty. But blaming it for making people poorer may be a little too far.

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