Reproductive change in Zimbabwe and Kenya: The role of the proximate determinants in recent fertility trends
Sibanda, A.
Biodemography and Social Biology 46(1-2): 82-99
1999
ISSN/ISBN: 1948-5565 DOI: 10.1080/19485565.1999.9988989Document Number: 258882
This study assesses and compares changes in the relative importance of the four proximate determinants of fertility, namely, marriage patterns, contraceptive use, postpartum infecundability, and primary sterility, between two sets of Demographic Health Surveys (DHS) conducted in Zimbabwe and Kenya. Data were drawn from the 1988-89 and 1994 Zimbabwe DHS and the 1988 and 1993 Kenya DHS. The results show that the fertility-inhibiting effects of contraception are more important than the effects of postpartum infecundability, marriage patterns, or sterility in Zimbabwe. Furthermore, the contraceptive patterns have their greatest fertility-suppressing effects in the middle and younger age groups. In Kenya, on the other hand, the dominant fertility-inhibiting effect is postpartum infecundability, with contraception coming in second. Another important finding is the fairly marked extent to which observed levels of fertility in Kenya and Zimbabwe can be attributed to concomitant variations in postpartum lactational infecundability, contraception, and nuptiality.