Do women gain from high fertility?
Kabeer, N.
Women, work, and ideology in the Third World: 83-108
1985
Document Number: 422804
The chapter is concerned with analyzing how one group of members of a traditional agrarian society, i.e. women, is likely to gain or lose by complying with traditional patterns of fertility. The data used in the analysis were collected during 1 year's residence in a village in Faridpur district in Bangladesh. Evidence is presented to show that male and female members within the household do not share equally in either the benefits or the costs accruing to it from a large membership. Women consume less of household resources, bear a larger proportion of the burden of child care, and have fewer rights to children. The extent to which they have interests in common with the rest of the household in maintaining traditionally high levels of fertility will therefore be determined by the extent to which they continue to derive some benefit from their children. It is argued that while women's worth at all levels of society continues to be measured in terms of their reproductive role, the impoverishment of landless households means the economic protection and security which children were relied upon to provide can no longer be guaranteed among the very poor. Women have the responsibility for feeding children, particularly in the early, less productive years of their lives. Women living on the margins of subsistence are likely to be particularly conscious of the economic costs of having large numbers of children and of the heavy toll it takes on their health and on their lives. They are also increasingly uncertain of the long term benefits they can expect in return. For these reasons it is argued that poor and landless women have least to gain from high fertility and are the most likely section of the village population to break from traditional patterns of reproductive behaviour.