Some Recent Research on Fertility in Africa and Asia

Abstract

Africa between the Sahara and the Union long rivaled China as an area of demographic ignorance. Estimates of present and future populations were alike conjectural. Knowledge is still limited but progress in the past decade has been rapid. Government planning has necessitated greater emphasis on statistical activities while advances in techniques of sampling and enumeration have permitted the collection of data within an African setting. There have been a few more ethnological field studies that were concerned with demographic processes and interrelations. Population pressure in native reserves migrant labor detribalization and other problems that are demographic in whole or in part have attracted the attention of territorial governments and international organizations. The question of the fertility of the indigenous population and changes in that fertility in response to social change and economic transformation begins to be seen as a critical factor in the long-run population prospects of the continent. The cumulating information is highly specific however and conclusions diverge widely. (excerpt)