Education in Africa 
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| Title: | Population Pressure, Social Change, Culture and Malawi's Pattern of Fertility Transition |
| Authors: | Kalipeni, Ezekiel Ebisemiju, F.S. |
| Year: | 1997 |
| Periodical: | African Studies Review |
| Volume: | 40 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Period: | September |
| Pages: | 173-208 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Malawi |
| Subjects: | fertility Health and Nutrition Miscellaneous (i.e. Demography, Refugees, Sports) Fertility and Infertility Health, Nutrition, and Medicine Labor and Employment Education and Training Family Planning and Contraception Demographics |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/525161 |
| Abstract: | This paper uses Malawi as a detailed case study to examine the relative influences of modernization and culture on the geography of fertility. Using data from the 1977 and 1987 censuses, the author investigates the levels and spatial variations of fertility rates in Malawi and the ambiguous relationship between fertility levels and socioeconomic variables associated with modernization theory and the demographic transition model. The author also suggests a stronger causal relationship between cultural variables and the spatial variation of fertility levels in Malawi. Given a normally fecund population, fertility will be determined to a considerable degree by the variation in demographic, social and economic variables. However, the analysis in this study shows that this may not necessarily be the case in some developing countries, such as Malawi. The results seem to indicate that Malawi may be going through a different pattern of demographic transition that is driven (to a larger extent) by population presures and deep-rooted cultural forces rather than simply the forces of modernization. The spatial mismatch between a number of variables associated with modernization (such as female literacy rates) and measures of fertility (crude birth rates and total fertility rates) supports this argument. Bibliogr. |
