FERTILITY AND NUMBER OF UNIONS: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM SUB SAHARAN AFRICAN COUNTRIES

FRANK AUDREY TCHOKONTHE, Institut de Formation et de Recherche Démographiques (IFORD)
Honore Mimche, IFORD

The debate on fertility determinants in Africa countries is ongoing due to recent figures that have not follow expectations. By reexamining the effects number of unions on fertility, this study intent to enrich the debate on fertility determinants in Sub Saharan Africa countries. For our analysis, we perform both Poisson regressions model and demographic decomposition among women between 15 and 49 years old on 88 DHS for 20 sub Saharan Africa countries. From results of our study, the number of unions affect significantly fertility level and pattern in sub-Saharan Africa. The demographic decomposition of fertility changes by the number of unions, reveal that it is change in composition and fertility behavior within the group of women who had had one union in their life that play the most important role in fertility decline. Changes within the group of women who had had more than one union in their life appear as the second source of variation in fertility decline. So implement a social policy that promote the sharing of childcare coming from past unions between spouse after separation could lead to a reduction of fertility desires in the new union.

Keywords: Fertility, Families, Unions and Households

See paper.