Reproductive mishaps and western contraception: An African challenge to fertility theory

This article examines findings from rural Gambia that contradict Western views of the behavioral dynamics of high-fertility regimes. Findings on contraceptive use following miscarriages, stillbirths, and child deaths in rural Gambia contradict conventional child spacing explanations of contraceptive use in Africa. Examining these and other anomalies that challenge Western views of the dynamics of high-fertility regimes, this article demonstrates that rural Gambians do not perceive female reproductivity to be limited by chronological age or time. Instead, they view reproductive potential as a finite bodily capacity that can be exhausted well before menopause. Linking the processes of reproduction and senescence, the authors show that views of the cumulative reproductive tolls over the life course closely converge with the medical and biological entailments to high fertility. Looking through a fresh cultural lens at how Western population science has come to analyze fertility, the article shows that the Gambian view of the full range of "costs" of high fertility under difficult economic and medical conditions holds important lessons for fertility theory.