Doctoral student Lisa McAllister, supervised by Dr. Michael Gurven, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, will investigate the determinants and consequences of women's fertility preferences. In many small-scale societies, fertility is not declining as expected. This study will investigate in detail the effects of acculturation and socioeconomic development on fertility and fertility preferences to elucidate more fully what the reasons are for the continuation of high fertility.
Research will be carried out among the Tsimane, Amerindian forager-horticulturists of central Bolivia. Women's fertility preferences are posited to be influenced by: (1) economic factors; (2) cultural factors; and (3) women's perceptions of fertility preferences for them. To investigate how these three key areas are affected by socioeconomic development and how they influence women's fertility preferences, three structured interviews will be conducted with each of 240 Tsimane women. These will include fertility preference interviews, resource value interviews and demographic and health interviews.
The significance of the research is that it will help social scientists understand why fertility rates are slow to decline in some societies. It also will help policy makers assist women in transitioning societies to achieve their reproductive goals and improve their socioeconomic status. Thus, at the end of the study family planning and maternal health workshops will be run in Tsimane villages and reports of the findings given to the Tsimane and Bolivian government and other agencies. Funding this research also supports the education of a graduate student.
This project examined two key questions concerning demographic transition, the transition from having many children (higher fertility) to few children (low fertility): (1) what are the sources and consequences of individual differences in how many children women want and how many children women have?; and (2) how are these differences affected by social and economic development? The demographic transition to a smaller family size occurred from the mid-1800s onwards in Europe and North America. However, it is still in the early stages in many African and South American countries. This continued high fertility in many low to middle income countries limits women’s autonomy and rights, negatively affects women’s and their children’s health and survival, and may limit economic growth and equality. Minority populations in South America, such as the Tsimane -- Amerindian forager-farmers of northwest Bolivia – are especially at risk. And, despite government and charity-based family planning efforts to encourage lower fertility in Amerindians, many populations have increasing fertility. This is of great concern as this extremely high fertility is associated with further deficits to women’s rights and health, and rapid population growth. This population growth is unsustainable, due to the associated environmental degradation and Amerindians’ limited socioeconomic upward mobility and land rights, and high dependency on the land for their livelihood. The plight of Amerindian women raises a third interlinked question: (3) why, for many Amerindian women is there a growing contradiction between how many children they want and how many children they have, despite exposure to socioeconomic development? The resulting dissertation addresses the aforementioned three questions among Tsimane men and women, and applies the findings to Amerindian populations and other minority populations. The resulting dissertation argues that fertility may not decline in these populations until: (1) there are no longer benefits associated with having many children (e.g. help on the farm and in old age; community influence and social standing reliant on having more family members); (2) the cost of children increases (e.g. the benefits of investing financially and temporally in a few educated children rather than many uneducated children are realized); (3) the benefits of investing heavily in a few children are realized (e.g. employment opportunities for members of minority populations are long-term, well paid, respectable and require education); (4) roles for women outside being mothers and housewives are readily available, and socially accepted; and (5) individuals are allowed to accumulate wealth (e.g. traditional cultural norms of sharing and redistribution of wealth are mitigated). This research is multidisciplinary and contributes to anthropology, demographic and population studies, and public policy. Key contributions to these fields have been, and will be, to: (1) highlight the potentially different demographic transition of minority populations within low to middle income countries; (2) suggest an explanation for their trajectory; and (3) suggest how the continued high fertility observed in many Amerindian populations, such as the Tsimane, may negatively affect women’s and their children’s growth, development, socioeconomic standing and autonomy. Furthermore, this research has always had applied goals. To that end findings from this project have been presented at several conferences in 2012. For example, findings from this project have been resented at The UC Global Health Day conference, The American Public Health Association annual meeting and The Population Association of America annual meeting. These meetings are attended by academics, business professionals and policy makers. They have allowed, and will allow, for me to disseminate my information to people who can use it to make necessary changes to improve the lives of indigenous and minority women. Morevoer, in 2013 I will be returning to Bolivia to present the Tsimane with a book on my findings aimed at helping the Tsimane with their family planning. This book will also be made available to local health organizations. I will be meeting with these health organizations to work on improving current family planning programs for the Tsimane and other local minority women. This will be followed by initiating in several Tsimane villages a new wave of family planning programs. Programs designed specifically for Tsimane women that: acknowledge their current and changing needs; their viable life options and desires; and their cultural norms. Once the success of this personalized approach to building a family planning program is realized I hope to use it to help model family planning programs for other minority populations across the Americas.
