Popul Environ (2009) 30:75–92 DOI 10.1007/s11111-009-0077-1 ORIGINAL PAPER
The role of intergenerational transfers, land, and education in fertility transition in rural Kenya: the case of Nyeri district Karina M. Shreffler Æ F. Nii-Amoo Dodoo
Published online: 24 February 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
Abstract This qualitative study reveals how population pressures, land availability, inheritance norms, and educational opportunities intertwine to influence fertility decline in rural Kenya. Focus group discussions with men and women whose childbearing occurred both before and after the onset of rapid, unexpected fertility transition in Nyeri, Kenya allowed individuals who actually participated in, or witnessed, the fertility transition to ‘‘voice’’ their perceptions as to the mechanisms underlying the transition. Findings suggest that, since land inheritance is a cultural norm, land scarcity and diminishing farm size often influence fertility decision-making and behavior via preferences for fewer children. Further, education does not appear to be the driving cause of fertility behavior change, but rather is adopted as a substitute for land inheritance when land resources are scarce. These findings have implications for our understanding of fertility behavior as well as for improving predictions of fertility transition in other rural sub-Saharan African contexts. Keywords Fertility Land Education Demographic transition Kenya Sub-Saharan Africa Intergenerational transfers
K. M. Shreffler (&) Department of Human Development and Family Science, Oklahoma State University, Tulsa, OK, USA e-mail:
[email protected] F. Nii-Amoo Dodoo Department of Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA F. Nii-Amoo Dodoo Regional Institute for Population Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana
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Introduction The link between land availability and fertility has received only limited scholarly attention, and little is known about how this relationship develops in the context of prevailing cultural inheritance norms. Indeed, prevailing insights into fertility transition processes have generally come from reconstructed historical data and from cross-sectional correlation and regression studies from which causality is often inferred. While this prior research has contributed to studying fertility trends over time, and to highlighting the importance of specific factors relative to others, less is known about the pathways and processes linking these factors to fertility decline. The recent African fertility transitions present important opportunities for ‘‘realtime’’ clarification of the underlying causes of this decline since the individuals involved in the transitions are still alive. Using data from focus group discussions with people whose childbearing occurred before and during the rapid and unexpected fertility decline in rural Kenya, we provide two primary contributions to the fertility transition literature. First, we flesh out the impact of diminishing land availability, farm size, and inheritance patterns on fertility decision-making and behavior. Second, we shed new light on the role of education, long considered the key determinant of fertility transition. We argue that rather than being an exogenous factor impacting fertility behavior, parents opted to educate their children after realizing they would not be able to bequeath sufficient land. In this way, our work provides evidence of the importance of considering the influence of environmental factors on demographic processes, particularly in regions of resource-dependence.
The factors shaping fertility Education and fertility Often considered a primary catalyst of fertility decline, education has been the focus of several theories put forward to explain fertility behavior (Conley et al. 2007; Bongaarts 2003; Axinn and Barber 2001; Uchudi 2001; Caldwell 1980; Jejeebhoy 1995). Parental schooling, for example, may lower fertility by providing parents with family planning information or by enabling women to better provide economically for their families (Axinn and Barber 2001). Likewise, the greater opportunity costs associated with more schooling may also depress fertility (i.e., time out of the paid labor force to give birth and/or raise children is more costly for women who earn higher wages) (Easterlin and Crimmins 1985). As related to empowerment, female schooling may also serve as a proxy for women’s status and provide women with not only opportunities, but also exposure to beliefs and values that inspire them to pursue such opportunities (Conley et al. 2007; Axinn and Barber 2001; Dixon-Mueller 1993). Indeed, empirical evidence reveals a significant relationship between women’s education and fertility at both the country- and individual-levels (Bongaarts 2003; Jejeebhoy 1995; Lam and Duryea 1999; Mencarini 2000). For example, using Demographic and Health Survey data for 57 developing countries, Bongaarts (2003) demonstrates that fertility differentials
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persist across countries by women’s level of education; in countries where women attain more education, fertility is lower than in countries where women have fewer years of education, on average. Studies at the individual level also find that women with more education tend to have fewer children (Castro Martin 1995; Jejeebhoy 1995; Mencarini 2000). In addition to these impacts, the perceived costs and benefits of providing children with education may also lower fertility. Caldwell’s (1982) theory of wealth flows suggests that when the net flow of transfers is from children to parents and the costs associated with raising children is low, fertility is typically high. As childrearing costs increase for parents, fertility declines. The onset of mass children’s schooling creates a societal expectation of investment in youth, while also lessening children’s contributions to family production (Caldwell 1980). Although altruism may be an important consideration, ensuring children’s economic success is critical to parents who expect their children to provide them security in old age (Caldwell 1982). Evidence of such a shift in wealth flow has been found in Mozambique where, along with economic hardships (e.g., unemployment, low wages, and high prices), the increasing costs of education are a large factor encouraging fertility limitation (Agadjanian 2005). Other evidence supporting the wealth flows perspective abounds (i.e., Cain 1977; Caldwell et al. 1999, DeLancey 1990; Dow and Werner 1983; Lee and Kramer 2002; Makinwa-Adebusoye 1994; Mueller 1976), although studies generally fail to take into account the importance of land inheritance (see Caldwell et al. 1999 for an exception). More generally, the wealth flows considered within most research endeavors manifest themselves while the two generations are simultaneously alive. Still, suggesting an impact resulting from prospective flows may not be too far-fetched, particularly in situations such as posthumous land transfer. Indeed, among rural farmers where landholdings are a considerable determinant of wealth, we argue that consideration of posthumous flows may be a significant predictor of behavior. Land and fertility In addition to schooling, land inheritance is one of the most important ways in which parents provide for their children’s future welfare in rural areas (Quisumbing et al. 2004). Surprisingly, however, few studies have examined parental choices in land bequests and how these choices may be linked to fertility and/or schooling choices. One such study by Estudillo et al. (2001) found that as the land available for cultivation diminishes, children’s educational attainment increases, although the causal linkages are not fully specified. Similarly, a study of rural Bangladesh found that diminishing land availability influenced parents to educate some of their children (Caldwell et al. 1999), presumably as a way to ensure that the children would be better prepared for their future. These findings suggest that parents in these settings may view education as a substitute for land and highlight the importance of providing children with the means to be economically successful as an adult. In general, existing theory and research have largely ignored the influence of inheritance considerations on fertility decisions. We argue that, where
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bequeathing land to children is important, the availability of land is an important fertility consideration. Surprisingly, few studies have examined the effects of resource ownership, access, and management on fertility (De Sherbinin et al. 2007). At present, there are two predominant hypotheses regarding the relationship between land availability, farm size, farm tenure, and fertility (Doveri 2000): (1) owning more land induces higher fertility because having more children potentially raises farm profits through greater labor availability and conversely, (2) the more landholdings a family has, the fewer children they are likely to have, because the land itself provides security. Various quantitative studies have assessed these hypotheses linking farm size and fertility, with mixed findings. A range of studies has found a positive relationship between amount of land owned and fertility in nineteenth century societies, in the United States (Easterlin 1976), Thailand (VanLandingham and Hirschman 2001), and more recently in Rwanda (Clay and Johnson 1992), the Philippines (Hawley 1955), Lower Egypt (Schutjer et al. 1983), and Brazil (Merrick 1978). Even at the community level, settings with more land devoted to agriculture have higher fertility rates (Ghimire and Hoelter 2007). On the other hand, studies have also found negative relationships between landholdings and fertility. In the Ecuadorian Amazon frontier, for example, women in households with legal land titles have nearly two-thirds fewer births than those without legal titles, and fertility is particularly low for women living on farms that have recently lost land (Carr et al. 2006). However, this finding may also be more related to socioeconomic status than to land availability, per se, since families with the largest farms were the most likely to outsource labor and raise cattle (therefore requiring less labor from the household itself). In addition to land availability, we are interested in land productivity. There are two dominant theoretical perspectives regarding increasing population density and agricultural productivity. The Boserupian hypothesis holds that agricultural production increases with population growth due to greater labor and capital inputs. The neo-Malthusianism hypothesis, on the other hand, holds that population growth will lead to ecological catastrophe in the long term (de Sherbinin et al. 2007). The Boserupian theory is supported in Machakos, another Kenyan district that experienced high population density and shrinking farm sizes; increasing scarcity of land promoted investment in technological advances that reduced environmental degradation while increasing farm outputs (Mortimore and Tiffen 1994). The reverse causal relationship between productivity and fertility decisions has been little studied, however. One exception is work in Nepal, finding that when households have access to natural resources on public lands, environmental degradation is linked to higher family size preferences because more family members are needed to obtain resources as they become more scarce (Biddlecom et al. 2005). However, it is unclear how environmental degradation or reduced land productivity would affect fertility in locations without much public land. The current study brings together this variety of scholarly literature to examine the relationship between reproductive behavior and land availability, productivity, and farm size in the Nyeri District of Kenya. Based on the accounts recorded from moderated discussion groups, we address the question of how participants’ perception of these local environmental factors influenced their childbearing
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decisions. Although there have been several research efforts to link land and reproductive behavior (reviewed above), results are mixed as to the relationship. Additionally, the historical and/or cross-sectional nature of much of the data has made it difficult to discern the underlying causal mechanisms driving the relationship, and inheritance patterns have largely been ignored. We consider the land–fertility relationship in a setting where the normative regime calls for parents to bequeath land inheritance to their offspring. In this context, we argue that increasing land pressure will create stresses on reproductive decision-making. The Kenyan context Land is one of the most important resources in Kenya, allowing for production of goods and services. Indeed, Kenya’s economy is primarily agro-based with agriculture contributing about one quarter of the gross domestic product (Kenya Land Alliance 2001). Agriculture is regarded as the lifeline, in particular, for the majority of the rural population, as 90% of rural Kenyans derive their livelihood directly from the land. Overall, land resources shape prosperity, facilitate the fulfillment of social obligations, and confer both social status and political power (Kenya Land Alliance 2001). The study of the land-fertility link in rural central Kenya is particularly interesting for several reasons. First, Kenya was among the earliest sub-Saharan African countries to experience fertility decline, which occurred much earlier than was expected by demographic experts (Garenne and Joseph 2002). Various theories posit why the unexpected occurred. Some argue that the growing acceptance of family planning along with increased effectiveness of Kenya’s family planning program played a role in the fertility decline (Hammerslough 1992; Robinson 1992). Others contend that changes in wealth flows made children an economic burden rather than a benefit (Caldwell 1982). Second, the fertility decline was hardly uniform across the country, and Central Province (and the Nyeri District in particular) was a leader in the Kenyan transition. In 1978, Central Province had a total fertility rate (TFR) of 8.4, and by 1998, the TFR had declined 66% to 3.7 (African Population and Health Research Center 1998). Additionally, rapid population growth due to high fertility rates in the past and declining mortality has resulted in land scarcity (Oucho 2000; Ovuka 2000), due in part to the traditional land tenure system in which parents divide their land equally among their sons (Kenyatta 1965). Such scarcity is likely to intensify; although Kenya’s annual growth rate has slowed to 2.8%, projections suggest that the current population of 32 million will increase by about 13.3 million by 2025 (Population and Reference Bureau 2008). Already, over 90% of Kenya’s population resides on the 18% of the nation’s land area suitable for agriculture, and the amount of arable land per person has fallen in Kenya over the last half century (see Table 1). In the Central Province, the per capital availability of land capable of producing crops declined from 0.58 hectares in 1969 to 0.19 in 1993, a loss of 67% (African Population and Health Research Center 1998). Given the centrality of agriculture to
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Source: African Population Policy Research Center. 1998. Fertility decline in Kenya: levels, trends, and differentials
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Province
1969
1979
1984
1989
1993
Central
0.58
0.48
0.35
0.22
0.19
Coast
1.49
0.87
0.70
0.54
0.38
Eastern
0.58
0.41
0.35
0.30
0.25
Nyanza
0.58
0.47
0.43
0.39
0.35
Rift Valley
1.90
1.23
1.05
0.88
0.71
Western
0.67
0.50
0.45
0.40
0.35
Total
0.98
0.66
0.55
0.45
0.35
Kenyan economic and social well-being, clearly the impacts of land scarcity represent important areas of inquiry. Another particularly salient reason for study of the rural Kenyan fertility decline has to do with the recency of the demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa; researchers have a unique opportunity to examine the transition from the perspective of those who actually induced the change.
Data and methods Our data come from a field study conducted by the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in the Nyeri District of Kenya in June, 1999. The study sought to investigate the socioeconomic and cultural factors that led rural Kenyans to limit their fertility, and the qualitative nature of the study allowed for a deeper understanding of the factors shaping fertility decision-making. The discussions yielded narratives both from those whose childbearing occurred before the transition as well as from younger respondents whose childbearing occurred during the transition; among the latter, researchers interviewed both those who acted to limit their family sizes and those who did not. With the onset of Kenya’s fertility transition dated at 1980 (African Population and Health Research Center 1998), a viable concern regards whether recollections of the actors dating back two decades or more might be confounded by recall problems and ex post facto rationalization. Although these are certainly valid concerns, we are comfortable with our assertions for three reasons: (1) the logic of the participants’ arguments; (2) the consistency of the assertions made; and (3) the detail provided. Still, we consider our findings more suggestive than definitive and hope this manuscript spurs future research exploring what we deem very logical arguments. Research setting The region chosen for the current study is the Nyeri District near the foothills of Mount Kenya. Nyeri is a largely agricultural district in the Central highlands and has some of the richest soils in Africa. Whether flat or steep, any arable land in Kenya is at a premium, and even on the sides of mountains, there is little or no fallow ground (Kask and Kenzer 1993). The land is used to grow cash crops—
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predominately coffee and tea—which were introduced during the colonial period (1888 through 1963) although European settlers had control of the cash crop market. The registration of land and land tenure began in the 1950s, and African cash crop holdings began in the 1960s (Leo 1984). The large majority (about 90%) of residents in Nyeri are from the Kikuyu ethnic group (Erulkar 2004). Approximately 95% are Christian, and the majority of young adults in the region have obtained at least a primary school education (Erulkar 2004). Nyeri District ranks among the highest areas in Kenya for both education testing scores and female participation in schools (Mensch and Lloyd 1998). Because of the high fertility rates and limited availability of contraception in subSaharan Africa in the 1960s, policy-makers assumed that there was a considerable unmet need for modern contraception (Cochrane and Farid 1985). Therefore, Kenya has had a national family planning program in place since 1967 (Dow and Werner 1983), and though accessibility to facilities that provide family planning differs throughout the country, since the 1980s, 100% of Nyeri residents have been within three hours (travel time by ‘‘usual means’’) of a family planning facility (Hammerslough 1992). However, these services have historically only been widely available to married adults; reported discrimination against unmarried women by family planning service providers has limited the delivery of these services (Price 1996). The land tenure system in Nyeri emerged during the second half of the nineteenth century when the Kikuyus began to move southwards from Mt. Kenya and began purchasing land from the hunter-gatherer inhabitants of the mountain’s lower slopes. This formed the basis of the land tenure systems known as ‘gethaka’ and ‘mbari,’ which are traditional systems of individual and family ownership of land, respectively. Children expected to inherit property from their parents, mostly in the form of land and livestock. The land tenure systems required that a man’s sons all equally split his land upon his death, with the eldest son receiving the homestead (Kenyatta 1965; Kilson 1955). However, the land tenure systems have changed in recent years as farm sizes have become smaller over the years (reducing the likelihood that all children will be able to receive viable inheritances), HIV/AIDS has altered the population structure, and Western values of gender equality have become more prevalent. To emphasize, the study region is unique in several ways that may have contributed to Nyeri being at the forefront of the Kenya’s fertility transition. Early colonization and the close proximity to Nairobi have resulted in more and better schools and enhanced access to employment opportunities (Orvis 1997). The region has a much higher proportion of middle-class residents than other regions in Kenya and also a lower proportion of impoverished households (Orvis 1997). However, although the majority of the population is Kikuyu (the largest and most politically powerful indigenous ethnic group), they own only a small percentage of the land due to the redistribution to white settlers that occurred during colonization (Kask and Kenzer 1993). Off-farm employment in Nairobi has long provided higher income than farm income; as early as the 1930s, skilled labor provided 1.5–3.5 times more income than the average farm income (Orvis 1997). Thus, many Kikuyu families have long viewed education as an important alternative to agriculture.
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Sample Focus group discussions concerning the social and economic conditions of participants’ lives, as well as their fertility preferences and behaviors, were carried out by APHRC researchers. The groups consisted of females within two cohorts (ages 40–49 and 50–59) and males within two cohorts (ages 45–54 and 55–64), for a total sample of 76 participants in 9 focus groups. The field team recruited potential respondents from the town/city centers and then screened selected respondents for participation using age, fertility, and contraceptive usage categories. The older cohort of females was purposively selected to match the ages of those who ended their childbearing before the fertility transition began, while the younger cohort reflected those who began childbearing shortly before the onset of the transition, circa 1980. The men’s ages were chosen to represent those who would be the likely marital partners of the female cohorts. Beyond age, study groups were distinguished by their fertility behavior: those who practiced natural fertility (i.e., made no attempt to control fertility) and those who consciously controlled fertility (i.e., limiters). The focus group discussions were held separately for men and women in each age cohort, as well as for those who limited their fertility and those who did not. Also, focus group discussions were held in both rural villages and more urban small towns. The decision to include these three dimensions in structuring focus groups (gender, limiting status, and location) was made to facilitate openness of discussion and to examine whether groups differed in the perceived factors shaping fertility decisions. Analytical procedures Following the focus group discussions, the audio-recorded data were transcribed into English by research assistants at the African Population and Health Research Center. Analysis was conducted using grounded theory coding procedures outlined by Strauss and Corbin (1990). First, important concepts pertaining to fertility choices were identified and categorized through open coding. A variety of categories were identified, including land, education, family planning, and HIV/ AIDS. Axial coding was then used to define the properties, dimensions, and subcategories of the broader categories previously identified. For example, within the category of ‘‘land’’, we identified subcategories reflecting aspects of discussion on farm size, land availability, subdivision, and productivity. Finally, because of our overarching interest in the association between land and family size, selective coding, the ‘‘process of integrating and refining the theory’’ (Strauss and Corbin 1990, p. 143), was used to determine how all identified categories related to the land-fertility association. The QSR-NUD*IST (1997) qualitative data analysis package was used to streamline the coding process. Research questions The questions used to guide the focus group discussions were loosely structured but generally asked participants to talk about the most important changes in the lives of
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people their age, between the time they started having children and the time they finished. Participants were not asked to directly report on themselves given the sensitivity of the topics and the group setting, though some did. Participants were first asked to list all the reasons for limiting fertility, and subsequently to rank these in order of importance. They were then asked to discuss factors such as farmland, women’s labor force participation, unemployment, costs associated with raising children, inheritance, educational expectations for children, bridewealth, polygyny, HIV/AIDS, male/female responsibilities, knowledge about family planning, and availability of family planning.
Findings Several topics were mentioned as primary reasons for people to limit their family sizes, such as the increasing cost of goods and education, but land was clearly the primary theme running throughout the discussions. Indeed, participants in all focus group discussions alluded to how land availability and the size of landholdings impact their economic circumstances, food cost and availability, and desired family sizes. Property inheritance, landholdings, and fertility Transcript analyses revealed that inheritance obligations had significant implications for fertility. Both men and women, especially younger, more-recently married respondents, reported making a decision on the number of children to have immediately after getting married by assessing the size of the land either in the matrimonial home or the share that belonged to the husbands. There was a general consensus among both those who limited and those who did not limit their fertility that parents should consider how many children to have on the basis of what they would be able to provide for them. In every focus group, women mentioned that upon marriage, a decision about family size was made depending upon the farm size. …If you see that the land is small, and if you had planned to get five children for example, you have to reduce this number. This is because, if out of these five there are three boys and there is nothing you are giving them, probably just a fraction of an acre, automatically you know that you will only get a certain number of children.—Female limiter, 40–49 years Landholdings were also often a consideration for men’s fertility decisions, especially at the beginning of marriage. Several male participants reported convincing their wives to only bear a certain number of children. For example, one male limiter stated, ‘‘…the piece of land that I was left by my parents is small. So, I saw that I can only afford to be able to take care of 3 children.’’ Clearly significant, the majority of participants, men and women, limiters and non-limiters, mentioned that increasing scarcity of land in the region is a primary factor in declining family sizes.
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These times are bad times because of the high population. People are so many. In the past we used to be told about how land used to be in plenty. That is why we find that the land is decreasing. That is why you find that like now even if you want to get at least even a small piece of land for cultivating you cannot get.—Female limiter, 40–49 years In addition to declining land available for purchase or rent in the region, farm sizes have been shrinking due to sub-division of land. Indeed, participants cited the subdivision of land parcels among family members as a major factor influencing reproductive decision-making. Where the same land parcel had been handed down from one generation to another, the portion allocated to children (and their families) obviously declined over the years. Limiting fertility, then, is associated with the desire to pass on viable plot sizes. For example, a male respondent aged 45– 54 years who did not limit his fertility explained: When I started getting children, the farms were big, but after the subdivision, … then the farm will be very small. So, when you are getting children, you have to consider that. I planted about 200–400 (coffee) plants. If I have 5 sons, and I subdivide this among them, they will get very few plants. So, nowadays, it is difficult to raise many children.—Male natural, 45–54 years A female respondent aged 40–49 years who did limit her fertility also mentioned land sub-division and its effect on harvests: …the numbers [of people] are increasing with time, and the more they are increasing, the land that we used to cultivate continues to be parceled and subdivided into small sizes. Therefore, this leads to minimal harvests and what you get from the farm is little.—Female limiter, 40–49 years Declining land productivity In contrast with prior literature on introduction of technology (Mortimore and Tiffen 1994), none of the Nyeri Focus Group participants mentioned methods other than artificial fertilizers, which several participants discussed negatively. Instead, as family farms were sub-divided, participants explained that over-utilization of the land led to productivity declines. A consensus was that inputs (e.g., artificial fertilizers) increase production costs while accompanying overall reductions in farm output due to the over-utilization of land from population pressure. …childrearing was very cheap because the food in the farm was doing well and the harvest used to be good and that time there was no use of things like artificial fertilizers. But these days the soil has degraded because once you plant your crops and you fail to use fertilizers and manure, they do not do well. Therefore food has become expensive compared to those earlier times.—Male limiter, 45–54 years According to participants, the resulting lower yields, and a fall in commodity prices especially for cash crops such as coffee and tea, affect family sizes. Given that land is no longer as productive, families decide to reduce family sizes because
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their crop yields are too small to support large families. In this way, although environmental degradation has been linked to increased fertility size preferences (Biddlecom et al. 2005), our results suggest the opposite relationship. Indeed, in discussion of why family sizes have declined, one man explained …I have never sat down and asked someone who has limited why they did it. But if you look at the situation in the country in terms of land availability and food productivity, that explains why.—Male natural, 45–54 years Fosterage, polygamy and HIV/AIDS: Linkages to the land–fertility relationship To better complete the understanding of recent fertility shifts within Nyeri, it is important to also mention other societal changes that influenced couples to limit family size, in conjunction with considerations about land. Such changes include reductions in child fosterage as well as polygamous unions. Fosterage dissipates the economic cost of children because the involved extended kin absorb some of the costs of large families (Isiugo-Abanihe 1985). According to the Focus Group participants, land scarcity has also shaped the practice of fostering children. Respondents describe declines in child fostering (and state the practice has became almost non-existent in some places) since it cannot be sustained as in the past when land was more productive and plentiful. If I have my own children, my sister can tell me that she will bring one of her children and I might not be able to do so because maybe I am not able to support even my own children because of the way life is. But a long time ago children could be fostered as they did not go to school and it was just (a matter of) feeding the child, and food was in plenty then in the farms.—Female limiter, 50–59 years Participants also noted that polygamous unions were also on the decline due to land scarcity, which, in turn, leads to smaller families. …Men long ago married many wives because there was a lot of land; one big parcel here, another one there. He could be able to support even three wives…Once you get many wives, the more financial problems; there are no jobs for the children, even if they are educated.—Male limiter, 55–64 years Fertility trends in the context of HIV/AIDS were discussed by many participants who largely believed that HIV/AIDS reduced fertility in the region for two reasons: (1) higher mother and infant mortality and (2) increased use of modern contraception. Whereas immunizations reduced the number of infant deaths for a time, the trend appears to be reversing of late due to an increasing HIV/AIDS rate. When we were being brought up, there was no immunization. Therefore, we could be affected by all kinds of diseases … these days, there are these incurable diseases. That is why you see these days, children have started dying more you see, children are being born by sick mothers and then they die. Our time there was no AIDS. In fact, now we see it like a fairy tale.—Female limiter, 40–49 years
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Contraception to limit exposure to HIV/AIDS was also discussed as a reason people might have fewer children. According to a male non-limiter, ‘‘…now because of AIDS, people fear having sex. Very few children are being born out of wedlock.’’ Finding a substitute for land inheritance: education as response versus cause Despite the commonly held perspective that education is a driving catalyst of fertility decline (Conley et al. 2007; Bongaarts 2003; Axinn and Barber 2001; Uchudi 2001; Caldwell 1980; Jejeebhoy 1995), the results of our Focus Group discussions suggest that rather than a direct relationship between education and fertility, land might, in fact, be the mechanism behind their inverse relationship. Participants reported that a quality education has become a substitute for land inheritance, and is often the only inheritance that parents can offer. Like us, when it comes to inheritance, there is no property. It is not like in the past when men had many cattle, land and they could say that they will give this and that to so and so. But today there is nothing that we can inherit and there is nothing that our children can inherit from us. Since there is no property and life is expensive. So now you just educate the child and hope for the best and the child also just tries to survive and hope for the best for the fathers since there is no property now.—Male limiter, 55–64 years As one male participant in the 55–64 year old non-limiting group stated, ‘‘one would inherit land from parents…but now, the land is small, and children can only inherit education from their parents.’’ When asked if she had any hope of ever leaving anything for her children, a woman responded: What else apart from education? It is only education. If you educate your children, that is all you could give them, because you see, we do not have any land…All we have is what we inherited from our fathers. There is no land we have bought on our own…There is nothing else our children can inherit from us apart from education.—Female limiter, 40–49 years Even though education beyond primary levels can be quite costly, parents want their children to gain more education than they had attained because secondary schooling is considered crucial for attaining jobs and a better future for the children. According to a female respondent aged 40–49 who limited her fertility, ‘‘I should struggle and pay for education for this child because I have no land. I want him to go on even if he makes it to that university.’’ Education and the decline of children as a source of labor and old age security Large families in Kenyan society were historically considered beneficial in the region’s labor-intensive agrarian system (Dow and Werner 1983). The need for high fertility declined for a number of reasons, most notably because of reduced farm sizes and the mechanization of agriculture (Caldwell 1982). Where the normative regime implies obligations of parent–child land transfers, the problem of growing
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land scarcity may quicken fertility decline. Purposely choosing to substitute education for land—that is, making education the bequeathed inheritance—will also have implications for traditional wealth flows. As more children attend school, they are no longer available to work on the family land. This causes families to incur the added costs of hiring farm laborers. Indeed, participants often mentioned that families were forced to hire farm hands due to their children’s school attendance, revealing a fine relationship between cultural obligation, land security, and education. Yes, we used to do a lot of work. For example, we used to go and help our mothers to fetch firewood. We even did so much household work in our homes. …I make sure my daughters do not do those hard tasks because they have to go to school…in most homes, they have workmen. The workload is made easier. But that time during our time, our parents used to wholly rely on us for labor.—Female limiter, 40–49 years Rather than finding support for the theory of old age security that assumes a desire to have large families due to the need for old age support, none of the participants expected to receive security in their old age from their children. Instead, participants suggested that the direction of wealth flow went solely from them to their children. Now this piece of land since I have inherited it and it cannot be enough for me, I realize that the assistance I can give my child is education. But I am not giving him the education so that he can help me in return. The reason is that the education is supposed to assist him in life since there is no land to give him as all the land is occupied.—Male limiter, 45–54 years Education and family planning Against the backdrop of declining land availability, participant accounts suggest that the availability of family planning services acted as a catalyst to an already existing demand for smaller families. Family planning is, therefore, not the primary causal explanation for limiting the number of children, but rather serves to help families attain their ideal family sizes. In this vein, diminishing land size clearly is the principal factor that encouraged people to adopt modern methods of family planning. I won’t say that availability of information made everybody decide to have few children. I can only say that what made all people accept to have few children are problems associated with raising children and educating them. When the cost of things was increased and land was not producing as much food as before, education became expensive; that is what I would say made most people accept to have few children.—Male limiter, 55–64 years In conclusion, while participants mentioned a variety of aforementioned reasons that contributed to the sudden, unexpected fertility decline in Nyeri District, there was surprising consensus among the male and female, rural and peri-urban, and
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limiter and non-limiter participants that shrinking farm sizes and scarce land availability are driving the decline. Parents are expected to provide a land inheritance to their children, so if they do not have much land to bequeath, participants suggested that smaller family sizes are necessary. Education is viewed as an acceptable alternative to land inheritance, but costs associated with educating children are also believed to further reduce fertility.
Discussion Although numerous studies have attempted to explain the relationship between land and fertility, we present the voices of the actors who effected fertility transition in rural Nyeri District, Kenya in the 1980s. Through these voices, we aim to clarify how land availability, scarcity, and productivity shape fertility desires. We argue that these first-hand discussions with participants whose childbearing years occurred during a period of considerable fertility transition shed light on the factors shaping reproductive decision-making, including environmental factors. The importance of land to these rural Kenyans cannot be understated as the vast majority depends on agriculture for a living. However, the importance of land extends beyond income; wealth, power, and prosperity are all reflected through landholdings. When land was plentiful, large families were profitable because children contributed to increased farm production; children contributed to the family, rather than being a net drain on its resources. As the population grows and families repeatedly divide their land among their children, farms became smaller and over-burdened, and there is less land available to pass on to future generations. Children become less productive and more expensive. Further exacerbating the population–land pressure is a normative regime wherein parents are obligated to bequeath land to their children. This cultural obligation apparently leads parents to seek alternative sources of inheritance for their children when land parcels are reduced to unviable sizes, and this may have further accelerated fertility behavior changes. As land availability declines and the number of non-farm jobs increase, schooling investments often become a substitute for land in transferring wealth to the next generation (Estudillo et al. 2001). We find that education emerged as a viable inheritance substitute; parents who cannot provide the traditional resource that would secure their children’s futures—land—opt to provide them an education instead. Participants often reasoned that education could enable children take care of themselves. As land grew scarce in rural Kenya, educational opportunities expanded, at least at the primary level. Policies providing free primary schooling were first instituted in the 1970s, and though these were not permanent until 2003, the Kenyan education system expanded greatly despite economic problems (Eshiwani 1990). At the same time, secondary schooling has been largely private and often requires payment for boarding, tuition, fees, and uniforms. Once free, university education has become more expensive for students since the 1970s as well (Ngome 2003). With high unemployment rates throughout Kenya and little land available to farm, continued education (i.e., secondary schooling and beyond)
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is often the key to securing stable employment. In this way, instead of being the exogenous variable that provokes fertility decline, we argue that education was initially an endogenous factor, spurred by the lack of ability to pass on land. Other researchers have also agonized over the relationship between education and fertility change and ‘‘caution(ed) the uncritical allegiance to specific remedies that seem to have worked in the West’’ (Dodoo and Frost 2008, p. 444). Although improving women’s education remains important for individual and national development, it is not clear that education is a causal precursor of African fertility behavior. Anticipating that education will be the universal solution to reduce high fertility is particularly questionable in regions where women have little say over their fertility (Dodoo and Frost 2008). Although our findings suggest that declines in land availability, farm size, and production are related to positive societal changes such as smaller family size and possibly greater educational attainment, it is important to consider the negative implications of these changes as well; declining farm sizes in sub-Saharan Africa have caused an increase in poverty, particularly for those with the smallest landholdings (Jayne et al. 2003). Land policies aiming to reduce poverty, such as redistribution, might therefore have an unintended consequence of increased fertility. While our participants did not discuss the effect of AIDS on child fostering rates in the region, it is plausible that fertility will be further reduced if it becomes more common to provide schooling for non-biological children. Even more subtle changes, such improvements in technologies that increase land productivity despite declining farm sizes—as evident in the Machakos District (Mortimore and Tiffen 1994)—may alter the importance of land and/or education on fertility decisions. Perhaps land will continue to be the preferred inheritance, or perhaps education will become more important as rural areas become more modernized and there is less reliance on family farms. It is unclear from our data how education will be affected by increases in land availability, which can occur if out-migration increases or if declining fertility patterns and high rates of HIV/AIDS persist in the region. Although our qualitative data cannot provide representative data for the relationships between land availability, farm size, education, and fertility, the data can yield insight into the multiple concerns men and women have when thinking about their desired family size. Interestingly, no large differences were found in reports between men and women, limiters and non-limiters, and rural and peri-urban participants. The causality of the land–fertility relationship as indicated by participants is consistent with economic theories of transition and reveals that decisions to limit family size are often based on the availability of resources. The participants repeatedly mentioned the importance of bequeathing these resources to their children. In the face of scarce resources, family size is likely to decrease. Further exploration into the importance of land availability as a causal factor is needed, and investigating this potential connection in the contexts of varying inheritance regimes will be illuminating. Likewise, fertility theories that focus on wealth flows or the costs of childbearing clearly should extend their scope beyond in vivo transfers to consider posthumous flows. In sum, the findings in this paper highlight the
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importance of inheritance customs, land availability, and productivity within reproductive decision-making—suggesting a dampening effect of environmental scarcity on fertility. Further, we reveal education as a mediator within the landfertility association, with parents choosing educational investment as an alternative to traditional resource inheritance when faced with land scarcity. Such findings have important implications for understanding current fertility patterns and improving predictions of future demand for schooling as well as fertility in regions with normative expectations of land inheritance when land resources are scarce. Acknowledgments Partial support for this research was provided by a grant to the Penn State Population Research Institute from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and core support to PRI from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grant No. 1 R24 HD41025). An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2005 annual meeting of the Population Association of America, Philadelphia, 31 March–2 April. The authors thank Gloria Chepngeno for assistance with the data analysis and the African Population and Health Research Center for their research support.
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