PSC African Demography Working Paper Series
The African Demography Working Paper Series was published by the Population Studies Center (PSC) at the University of Pennsylvania between 1980-1989. In total there were 18 papers published in this series. The papers housed in this collection function as an archive of the work done by researchers affiliated with the PSC at the time of publication that were involved in research related to African Demography.
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Publication The age pattern of infant and child mortality in Ngayokheme (rural West Africa)(1981-10-01) Garenne, MichelThe paper presents and discusses the age pattern of mortality observed in Ngayokheme (Sine Saloum, Senegal). It is compared to data of other developing areas and to model life tables. Mortality at ages 1 to 4 is shown to be much higher than anywhere else where data are available. Reasons for this pattern are investigated. Emphasis is given to the epidemiological pattern, especially to diarrheal diseases and malaria and to the seasonality of mortality.Publication The next child: spacing strategy in Yorubaland (with translations from taped interviews)(1981-09-01) Adeokun, Lawrence A.The translations of taped interviews with Yoruba parents in two' sub-ethnic groups, the lkale and the Ekiti, are the substance of this Working Paper. Very rarely do the views expressed at the field level survive into research reports, much less reach the demographer, concerned as he or she is ultimately with aggregated analysis. Very rarely, too, does the opportunity arise for parents involved in demographic surveys to '.have en input into the development of survey concepts. They are usually faced with readymade conceptualization, definition and operationalization of phenomena closely related to their lives, and asked to respond within these limits. The convention of pre-testing questionnaires, embodying those pre-determined concepts, helps up to the point of identifying inappropriate concepts, but not those that may be most germane.Publication Child mortality differentials in Sudan(1981-08-01) Farah, Adbul-Aziz; Preston, SamuelSudan presents an excellent opportunity for studying mortality conditions in poor countries. It is one of the 25 "least developed" countries by U.N. designation, most of whom have very little information on mortality and general health conditions. As the largest African country in area, Sudan is also a land of rich ecological contrast, stretching from desert areas in the North through savannah areas to dense equatorial jungle in the South. The northern portions are Arabic and Islamic, the southern portions black African. The 1955/56 census enumerated 597 tribes speaking some 115 languages. Aridity in the North and swamps in the South have retarded the development of these areas and fostered nomadism, population concentration is greatest in the middle belt and particularly along the Nile and its tributaries. This paper has since been published as: "Child Mortality Differentials in Sudan," by Abdul-Aziz Farah; Samuel H. Preston in, Population and Development Review, Vol. 8, No. 2. (Jun., 1982), pp. 365-383. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0098-7921%28198206%298%3A2%3C365%3ACMDIS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4Publication Mechanisms affecting the link between nuptiality and fertility: Tanzania, 1973(1981-07-01) Sekatawa, Emmanuel K.The analytical framework proposed by Davis and Blake (1956) divides the process of reproduction into three elements: (i) exposure to the risk of pregnancy, (ii) the ability to conceive and (iii) successful gestation. This paper is concerned with the first element. Data from the 1973 National Demographic Survey of Tanzania (NDS) are used to investigate the role of marriage behavior in determining fertility levels. Coale's parameters of the age pattern of first marriage ao, k and C are translated into Im-type measures. A system of indices is developed to represent the effects of the prevalence and age patterns of first marriage, marital disruption and remarriage on fertility. Techniques for obtaining detailed information on the process of marital dissolution and subsequent remarriage are presented. The potential effects of changes in nuptia1ity patterns on fertility are discussed.Publication Size of households in tropical Africa(1981-02-01) Garenne, MichelThe paper starts with a discussion of the concepts of household and family in historical and contemporary populations and summarizes the debate about size of households. A study of the average size of households and compounds recorded by censuses and surveys in tropical Africa is done followed by a discussion of the various definitions of households. Finally an illustration is given using data collected on the Serer, an ethnic group in Senegal.Publication Patterns of low-income settlement and mobility in Nairobi, Kenya(1980-10-01) Muwonge, J. W.The author traces the development of low-incoming housing zones in the city of Nairobi (Kenya), which were initially shaped by the exclusive urban policies of the British Colonial Government, and further influenced by minimum standards codes established after Independence. Using a random sample of 1,480 heads of households, the author examines zones of entry into the city, with a view to identifying the residential patterns which low-income migrants establish in the process of becoming securely settled in the city. Three distinctive zones are identified, namely, the central, the intermediate, and the peripheral zones. The author offers several demographic.Publication Modernization and the fertility transition, Egypt, 1975(1980-06-01) Issa, Mahmoud S. AbdouThis study investigates regional marital fertility differentials in Egypt and their relationship to the level of modernization of the region: defined as economic development and social and cultural change. The intermediate variables (Davis and Blake, 1965) underlying these regional levels and patterns of marital fertility are determined and their relation to the level of modernization of the region is also evaluated. In order to assess the nature of the recent decline in the crude birth rate in Egypt, the long term fertility and mortality levels are discussed. The prospects of a fertility transition in Egypt are assessed in terms of the current fertility level and pattern, the extent of deliberate fertility regulation, the urban-rural fertility differential and differentials by socioeconomic status. The study draws from Easterlin's model of social and economic determinants of marital fertility as a frame of reference. The model's basic social and economic intermediate variables (denoted Cn, Cd, and CR)are evaluated, and the model's interpretations of cross-sectional marital fertility differentials by socioeconomic status and the long term fertility trend are empirically verified.Publication The study of mortality in the African context(1980-02-01) van de Walle, Etienne; Heisler, DouglasThe demographic study of mortality in Subsaharan Africa is dominated by two paradoxes. The first has to do with the recognition awarded to the topic. The persistence of high mortality levels--higher probably than in any other large world region--makes it a potentially burning social issue. The people of the area are concerned about access to modern medicine and the eradication of diseases. If a field calls for the development of accurate statistics, this is it. We know little about mortality levels and their distribution over space; we know even less on trends, and virtually nothing about mortality differentials by social and economic circumstances. There are no major breakthroughs in morbidity and cause of death statistics. Africa is still far from the stage reached in Europe 150 years ago in the study of mortality. When William Farr organized the collection of vital statistics in England and Wales his concern and that of his contemporaries was with the fight against disease. Farr, a mere Compiler of Abstracts at the Registrar General's Office, was hailed as the foremost medical statistician of his time; it was said that after him "pestilence no longer walketh in the dark." The use of the data he helped to collect was decisive in the conquest of the major scourge of the time, cholera. He provided information on the location of the most unsanitary sections of the country and identified the most dangerous occupations. We doubt that the demographic statistics that are collected today in Africa are used very much in the same way, to identify areas of infection and classes of the population specially vulnerable to specific diseases. Despite the importance of these issues, and despite the universal desire to prolong life and to eliminate the human wastage of early death, little effort goes into the collection of demographic data on morta1ity. This becomes more apparent if we compare research on mortality to the much more active interest in fertility, although the latter topic is not widely recognized in the area itself as a burning issue. Out aim is certainly not to suggest that less research should be directed towards fertility and its determinants. Rather, we find it paradoxical that mortality research does not elicit more attention.Publication Regional marriage patterns and trends in Northern Sudan(1989-08-01) Abdelrahman, Abdelrahman IbrahimMarriage is an important institution for both individuals and society as a whole. It is a significant event in the life cycle of individuals; for society at large it represents the creation of a new unit of production, consumption, distribution and exchange of goods and services. In most comparative studies of nuptiality it has been usual to characterize sub-Saharan pattern of marriage as “early and universal”. Early and virtually continuous marriage throughout a woman's reproductive years is also maintained by several related marriage customs including polygyny, levirate marriage, and bride wealth or bride price (van de Walle, 1968;Goldman and Pebley, 1986).Publication Postpartum sexual abstinence in tropical Africa(1989) van de Walle, Etienne; van de Walle, FrancinePostpartum taboos on sexual intercourse have been encountered in many countries throughout history. They were once advocated by medical authorities in Europe. The Greek and Roman doctors of antiquity were opposed to sexual relations during nursing and their opinions were quoted until the nineteenth century. Galen (1951:29) thought that the milk of the nursing mother would be spoiled because of the admixture of sperm in the mother's blood. Soranos and Hippocrates believed that coitus and passionate behavior provided the stimulus that reactivated menstruation. Prior to the eighteenth century, there was no medical knowledge of the biological effect of bring on inence, and not the action of breastfeeding, was thought to delay the return of menses. This interpretation was still vivid in Europe in the eighteenth century.