SPOUSES’ SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS AND CONTRACEPTIVE USE IN KINSHASA, ZAIRE1
Demography
7
Issue: 1
(04 - 1992)
This paper examines the impact of spouses’ education, fertility
desires, and marital characteristics on contraceptive use in Kinshasa,
Zaire. The results reveal that, while family planning services focus
their activities exclusively on women, husbands’ education and fertility
desire are very important in explaining the use of birth control in
marriage. This male role is crucial in understanding fertility patterns
in Africa, where the major familial decisions are made by the husband.
The persistence of high fertility in Africa despite the
implementation of family planning has defied both researchers and
organizations concerned about the growth of population (Ezeh, 1992).
While prior studies attributed low rates of contraceptive use to a lack
of information among potential users (Uche, 1972), current data
suggest that knowledge is not a determinate factor of birth control
(Blanc and Croft, 1992). Instead, in some cases increases in
knowledge about and practice of modern contraception have been
accompanied by a rise in fertility and natural increase (Dow and
Werner, 1981).
As with any other innovation, the success of birth control
depends on the identification of social units intervening in decisions on
material reproduction, for cultural effects operate through those
channels. But as of now there is no agreement about which unit to
consider in studies on contraceptive use in Africa, probably because of
the theoretical predominance of the Western model of the family.
For some scholars, husband and wife belong to the lineages of
their families of origin and should be treated separately (Lesthaeghe,
1989; Marshall, 1970). Others locate the reproductive decision with
the dominate spouse’s family, away from the biological parents
(Caldwell, 1983). We believe, however, that each of these social units
0