John C. Caldwell in his article, “ The Soft Underbelly of Development: Demographic Transition in Conditions of Limited Economic Change,” makes the case that reducing fertility in Africa is different and more difficult than reducing fertility in other countries, even other lesser-developed countries. Caldwell sets out to prove that programs which only target economic development are not enough to reduce fertility in Africa. According to Caldwell, the cultural effects on fertility in Africa are so deep that they outweigh the improvements that development might make on fertility.
Caldwell explains that regions of the world cannot be expected to decrease fertility to the same degree at a specific developmental threshold, as the “threshold theory” asserts. Even if Africa achieved the threshold levels of per capita income, urbanization, mortality levels, and female literacy experienced in other regions of the world that led to a decrease in fertility rates, Africa’s fertility may still be unaffected. Caldwell attributes Africa’s continued high fertility rates to social factors that are not present in other regions of the world.
In Africa, there are many cultural norms that promote an average total fertility rate of 6.7. Caldwell suspects that Africa is the world’s most pronatalist region for a variety of reasons. Firstly, Caldwell through his previous work had determined the “wealth flow theory” that argues fertility will decrease when there is a flow of resources from parents to children, instead of children to parents. Caldwell further argues that this economic shift is a result of a social change that occurs when families show greater concern for their children. In Africa, the benefits of having children still seem to outweigh the costs because having additional children provides additional agricultural support. Caldwell suggests that increasing the technology of agriculture might reduce the benefits of each individual farmer and may in turn reduce fertility.
Societal pressure to have many children is reinforced by a deep-rooted fear in African women of having no children. Women have many children to decrease the risk of being left without any children if they all die. Because bearing children is an African woman’s major responsibility, women out of fear, and guilt feel forced to have no less than six children. Caldwell points out that this fear persists despite the fact that infant mortality has decreased considerably to below 100 per 1,000 children, which was the level achieved in Northwest Europe when fertility had dropped to about half of what it is in Africa. One must wonder why African women are not aware of or do not trust the declining infant mortality rate.
In addition, the highest incidence of polygyny in the world is in Sub-Saharan Africa. Caldwell explains that polygyny does not decrease fertility but maximizes the fertility of the society on the whole by making all women available to marriage and reproduction. Despite a rise in education levels in Ghana, polygyny has remained constant, illustrating that a societal shift away from polygyny may be hard to achieve through education alone. Another reason that fertility remains high is that use of contraceptives in Sub-Saharan Africa is at a lower level than any other region of the world. Contraceptive use is still not particularly acceptable in Africa, making efforts to limit family size more difficult. However, Caldwell asserts that in Africa contraceptive use is mainly for the purpose of covering up extramarital and premarital sex. Thus, contraceptive use in Africa is not even related to controlling family size. Finally, Caldwell explains that programs aimed at reducing fertility in Africa have been largely unsuccessful because of the newness of African governments that lack the power to enforce extensive programs that target fertility. Programs aimed at reducing fertility may also come with too high a price tag to expect any changes in the fertility rate in the near future.