Abstract
1that found no evidence of ‘perverse incentives’ for childbearing associated with the CSG; a second report 2 came to the same conclusion, despite presenting internally inconsistent estimates of the levels of teenage fertility in the country and by population group in the last decade. It is desirable to place in the public domain as much evidence as possible regarding the trends and differentials in teenage fertility rates over an extended period of time. Teenage fertility rates (births per 1 000 women aged 15 - 19) from the 1996 and 2001 censuses and the 1998 South Africa Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 3 are shown in Table I. Unfortunately the estimates of fertility in the 2003 DHS are implausibly low and cannot be used. 4 There is a strong congruency between the results from the 1996 census and the 1998 DHS, which is all the more robust given that the results from the DHS are averaged 3-year rates, and are centred almost exactly on the census date. Only among coloured teenagers is there some uncertainty as to the level of teenage fertility in the mid- to late 1990s, a few years before the introduction of the CSG in 1998. Data from the 2001 census show that among all population groups, teenage fertility fell by at least 10% over the 5 years between the censuses. This certainly suggests that the introduction of the CSG is unlikely to have given rise to an increase in the number of teenagers giving birth. However, it is impossible to determine precisely the pattern of change in teenage births between the two censuses, and arguably these data are still insufficient to definitively reject suggestions (no matter how unlikely given the context of the South African fertility decline) that the introduction of the CSG modified an even steeper decline within the period.
Published Version
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