whether they are able and willing to delegate child care or not. In the case of work attempts to correlate it with either fertility or contraception have been hampered by the poor definition *
or economic activity in the major comparative survey sets available (Lloyd 1991) and alsothe fact that in the region nine out of ten women are subsistence and own account workers
in the "informal sector'
♦u ♦ e 1?.ereJS ty nOW, a firowing body of data from different parts of the world to indicate hat fertility declines do not simply follow changes in such indexes of modernization as
«raC£ *omen s work or female autonomy, but that macro-level socio-economic chances
affect different sectors of the population of a given community in different ways and fertility
declines occur according to changes in the value of children within the context of class
specific family economies and costs. All kinds of political, legal, social and economic
POP/APC.3/92/Inf.5 Page 27 changes can have profound impacts on the family economy. They include such changes as child labour laws and their enforcement, and changes in employment opportunities, etc.
1 There is evidence from a variety of anthropological studies that small sets of people
may be both demographic and contraceptive innovators.37 For they desire and purposely achieve smaller families than their parents before them. Social and spatial mobility.are linked to such innovation, mobility which set people apart from conservative values and pressures pervasive in customary kin and community networks and places them in looser knit, more differentiated social networks in which hew ideas are pervasive and new practices possible. Innovation results most readily when new aspirations and values are adopted, when strains and stresses are increasingly involved in the achievement of traditional goals, such as raising large families and the means to inriovateare available and socially sanctioned. In other cases where strain is not expressed, innovative resources and practices may merely be adopted in order to achieve traditionally held values.38 ' ' » ' ..". .
-For the majority still, the only means of birth postponement or stopping at their disposal are traditional means. Contraception is still seldom used except in three countries, where increases have been recently recorded in the Demographic and Health Surveys. These countries are Botswana, Kenya and Zimbabwe. Obviously relatively widespread social and spatial mobility are implicated in these cases, as well as more widespread access to modern means of family-planning.39. In the case of Zimbabwe, Mhloyi (1991) has pointed to increasing economic hardship and education increasing the costs and reducing the means for parenthood and the use of more efficient means of contraception. In addition, children are reported to be reducing support to parents on the excuse of low relative income. -Thus the desire for smaller family size is growing. .'' > ■
"In; the case of Kenya, which maintained the highest fertility in the world for some time, recent evidence of decline has been attributed to changes in spacing and: stopping patterns. The length of all birth intervals has increased over time (Njogu and Martin, 1991).
This increase in intervals isdue to contraceptive use. In the WFS and'DHS increases in contraceptive use were observed, especially among women with four living.children. Recent studies have demonstrated that women's group members are significantly more likely to be current users of contraceptives than non-members. Moreover, non-members who live in areas with strong, economically oriented women's groups are more likely to be contraceptors (Hammerslough,'1991).40- .■■-■'...
"* ' '-"i .■■•"' ■ - ■ i . ,
The importance for innovation of gossip and transfer of information in informal women's networks has been highlighted (Watkins, 1991).41: Women's participation in women's organizations, trade unions, etc., is likely to provide access to new knowledge and new ways^of doing things.1 There is diverse evidence that such groups provide women with new ideas and support for innovation. Market women's associations are among.the most common women's associations in West Africa and have already become vehicles for the sale and spread of information on health and family planning products. Church groups also play an important part in spreading the word on family life and marriage, and responsible parenthood. It has been hypothesized that there are likely.to be differences in the pace of fertility decline in the nineties among the various countries in the region according to the characteristics of women's networks and that where they are extensive and socially heterogeneous (Watkins, 1991). ' ' ■ ...> . .
POP/PAC.3/92/Inf.5 Page 28
CONSEQUENCES
Recognition is now spreading in this region and elsewhere that if economic and demographic goals of both nation states and households are to be reached, there will have to be a fairer allocation between boys and girls, women and men of the resources required.
The latter include places not only in primary schools and secondary schools, but in non-traditional areas of vocational and technical training and the resources required for farming.
Women will also need a more adequate allocation of health care to help them undergo pregnancies and childbirths with lower levels of morbidity and mortality.
A cry has echoed to invest more in girls and women (UNFPA, 1989). Thus, at the present time a number of international agencies are working together with national
governments in the region to promote greater equality of treatment and opportunities in workplaces (ILO, ) and in all realms of education, health and employment. A watchword
now is to "mainstream" women in policies and programmes (UNFPA, 1991) to engender adjustment policies (Commonwealth Secretariat, 1989).A number of current changes have been identified, which point to immediate needs
for intensified policy and programme initiatives. These include macro-economic and demographic changes, which would have significant implications at the family and household level and which will face all governments in the region during the nineties (Oppong, 1992).
These include the following:
1. ■ Role transitions - The reckoning of the numbers of vulnerable girls entering the
post-pubertal teenage years and risk of motherhood, in social and economically
unsupported and deprived circumstances: Programmes and services of many kinds are needed, including education, vocational training, counselling and social services, family welfare and planning, and maternal and child health support. Grave consequences for the upcoming generations will be the outcome of failure to heed these calculations. For vulnerable girls the loss of kin protection and control areserious as they become prey to poverty, to sexual coercion and exploitation in a
variety of situations. * . ,
2. Productive/reproductive conflicts - For growing numbers of workers there is serious conflict between domestic, parental, and occupational activities and responsibilities.
Home and work are more often separate and increasing numbers of children are suffering the effects of maternal and paternal deprivation. Increasing rsocial and
spatial mobility is having insidious impacts upon the kinds of kin solidarity which in
a former era ensured the survival of kin in time of crisis or disaster. Individual parents are increasingly being left to shoulder parental responsibilities alone or grandmothers alone are looking after children. Indeed increasing numbers of children are being separated from both parents in contexts in which fostering has become a form of child service or labour. For growing numbers of women it is impossible tocombine breast-feeding, child care and gainful employment, as kin who would have shared responsibilities are dispersed and modern workplaces do not provide the infant friendly environments of more informal sector workplaces. The intensity and duration of breast-feeding are affected and quality of weaning care, with serious
implications for child spacing, child development and survival.3. Women alone - A phenomenon of increasing proportions is that of women alone without husbands or kin, either to control, protect or support them. Such women are
Page 29 subject to the vagaries of labour markets and the vagaries of informal sector work and to the advances of men migrating alone for work. Such migratory patterns are now recognized as putting individuals at increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases, especially in contexts in which gender inequalities are rife. Migrant workers now form as many as a quarter of the population of some countries.' Short-term seasonal movements of workers are also common and mobility has been linked critically to reproductive morbidity and mortality.