PROXIMATE DETERMINANTS AND FERTILITY DIFFERENTIALS IN BENDEL STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The paper examines the contribution of proximate determinants to the understanding of rural-urban and ethnic fertility differentials in Bendel State of Nigeria. The Bongaarts model provides a framework for analyzing the relationships between fertility and its proximate determinants. The results of the analysis showed that durations of breastfeeding, amenorrhoea and postpartum sexual abstinence are relatively short in Bendel State compared with some other ethnic groups in Nigeria. Higher education, urban residence and participation in modern sector employment are associated with shorter duration of breastfeeding, amenorrhoea and postpartum sexual abstinence and greater use of contraception. Although the findings of the study suggest that the Bongaarts model will yield better results if applied to large samples, the analysis shows that differences in proximate determinants help to explain fertility differentials. Thus the near equality between fertility levels in urban and rural centres is arrived at through different combinations of proximate indices. Findings suggest the need for a vigorous family planning information programme to improve knowledge about the benefits of smaller families and practice of family planning

WOMEN’S POSITION, CONJUGAL RELATIONSHIPS AND FERTILITY BEHAVIOUR AMONG THE YORUBA

Abstract

One of the effects of modernisation on societies of the developing world is the patterning of marriage after the "Western" style and the increasing nucleation of the family (Caldwell 1977). Hence the development (in urban centres and in some rural areas) of the small family comprising the couple and their children with the occasional housemaid or relation. The implication of this development is the fact that fertility decisions are increasingly being made by the couple alone and for this reason conjugal relationships are likely to play a more important role in deciding which direction fertility should move.

ADULT MORBIDITY DIFFERENTIALS IN LAGOS, 1968-1978

Abstract

The rapid rate of growth of contemporary African cities creates appalling and chronic overcrowding and deterioration of facilities available both within individual houses and in the cities themselves. The poor environmental conditions are inimical to health. Of recent, the environmental degradation has been aggravated by various kinds of pollution associated with the machine age. As the industrial development of the cities progresses, their inhabitants enter the urban-industrial labour force in large numbers. The tempo and tension of city life concomitant on the new social roles (particularly industrial employment) give city-dwellers repeated exp

MIGRATION AND HEALTH

Abstract

Relationships between population movements and health are recognised in the literature of the social and the biomedical sciences. These relationships are manifest in the following examples. a) The effects of movements on the transmission of disease and their impacts on programmes for disease control, both of which may be illustrated in historical and contemporary experience. The former are exemplified in the sleeping sickness epidemics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly in east and central Africa - people moved, settlements were deserted, population was redistributed and new ecological conditions and patterns of population/land relationships emerged (Ford 1971). The latter are exemplified in attempts to achieve malaria control, with limited success among rural populations, particularly in savanna areas of Africa (Moluneaux and Guamiccia 1980), in the more successful major onchocerciasis control programme in the Volta River headwaters and adjacent parts of West Africa during the last two decades (Remme and Zonzo 1989), and in studies of the as yet only partially understood spread of AIDS. b) The effects of movements on the physical and mental conditions of those who move. These effects are especially relevant in the rural-urban movements which are common throughout Africa. Physical stress is caused, for example, by changes in patterns of food consumption with resultant undernutrition and malnutrition (especially if the transition to urban life is accompanied by under-and un-employment and deprivation). Mental stress is caused by exchanging close and intense personal contacts in rural life for the relative anonymity of urban life with deprivation of such contacts. The impact of both these sets of stresses is mitigated by the maintenance of urban-rural contacts and by the development of urban support systenis which have rural origins. c) The effects of movements on the need for, the nature of and the provision of health services - in both rural and urban areas: with the relative neglect of the former and emphasis on the latter. There are also the particular needs of traditionally mobile rural people such as nomadic pastoralists

CONTRIBUTION A LA DEMOGRAPHY fflSTORIQUE OUEST AFRICAINE : UNE ETUDE DES MIGRATIONS BURKIN ABE VERS LE GHANA ET LA COTE D’IVOIRE PENDANT LA PERIODE COLONIALE (1)

Abstract

G'est maintenant un fait bien connu : la societe burkinabe se caracterise par une forte mobilite spatiale de sa population. L'intensite de cette migration burkinabe s'exprime tant a l'interieur qu'a l'exterieur des frontieres du pays, et cela depuis la periode coloniale. Un autre fait assez connu est l'importance des destinations ivoirienne et ghaneenne dans les migrations voltaiques. Pendant longtemps, le Ghana avait ete la destination principale de l'emigration des Burkinabe. Mais a un moment donne de la periode coloniale, la Cote d'Ivoire s'est substitute au Ghana pour devenir le lieu principal d'accueil des emigrants burkinabe. Ce relai n'est certainement pas du au hasard. C'est probablement le resultat d'un processus historique dont il conviendrait de connaitre les mecanismes. De nombreuses etudes sur les migrations voltaiques ont evoque le changement intervenu dans ce double reseau migratoire (Clairin, 1973 ; Gregory, 1974 ; Coulibaly, 1978 ; Conde et Zacharia, 1980 ; Coulibaly et al., 1981...). Parmi les auteurs cites, certains pretendent que ce changement est survenu vers 1935 (Clairin, 1973 ; Conde et Zacharia, 1980). En effet selon Conde et Zacharia (1980) "... Until 1935, the Ivory Coast was second only to Ghana in its economic attractiveness. Ever since then it has remained the major destination of Upper Volta nationals". (1) Cet article est extrait du memoire de maitrise de l'auteur intitule "L'importance du Ghana et de la Cote d'Ivoire dans les migrations voltaiques" et qui a ete dirige par Joel Gregory que la mort a enleve a notre affection le 29 juillet 1988. Cet article est dedie a sa memoire.

MIGRATIONS ET DEVELOPPEMENT EN AFRIQUE QUELQUES ASPECTS METHODOLOGIQUES

Abstract

On dispose presentement de plusieurs travaux sur les aspects methodologiques des migrations africaines, notamment sur la qualite des sources de donnees, les limites des methodes classiques d'analyse demographique, les limites du concept meme de migration, mais moins sur le role de la migration dans le processus de developpement. Ces travaux ne sont pas seulement l'oeuvre des auteurs individuels, des organisations comme la Communaute Economique pour l'Afrique (CEA) ou les Nations Unies (Division de Population) ont aussi publie des etudes sur ces aspects. La CEA, par exemple, a consacre trois numeros - n° 14, 15 et 17 - du BIS (Bulletin d'Information Statistique) aux migrations. De tous ces travaux, trois syntheses-critiques relativement recentes (Bilsborrow, 1979; Gregory et Piche, 1985 et Simmons, 1985) restent des references obligees pour toute nouvelle reflexion methodologique sur les migrations africaines. D'autres etudes sont egalement a retenir pour certains aspects particuliers des migrations, notamment celui de Gregory (1989) sur les questions methodologiques de l'etude de l'insertion des migrants en ville.