Exposure to Armed Conflict and Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa
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Exposure to Armed Conflict and Fertility in Sub-Saharan Africa Brian C. Thiede 1 & Matthew Hancock 1 & Ahmed Kodouda 2 & James Piazza 3 # Population Association of America 2020
Abstract Changes in fertility patterns are hypothesized to be among the many second-order consequences of armed conflict, but expectations about the direction of such effects are theoretically ambiguous. Prior research, from a range of contexts, has also yielded inconsistent results. We contribute to this debate by using harmonized data and methods to examine the effects of exposure to conflict on preferred and observed fertility outcomes across a spatially and temporally extensive population. We use highresolution georeferenced data from 25 sub-Saharan African countries, combining records of violent events from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) with data on fertility goals and outcomes from the Demographic and Health Surveys (n = 368,765 women aged 15–49 years). We estimate a series of linear and logistic regression models to assess the effects of exposure to conflict events on ideal family size and the probability of childbearing within the 12 months prior to the interview. We find that, on average, exposure to armed conflict leads to modest reductions in both respondents’ preferred family size and their probability of recent childbearing. Many of these effects are heterogeneous between demographic groups and across contexts, which suggests systematic differences in women’s vulnerability or preferred responses to armed conflict. Additional analyses suggest that conflict-related fertility declines may be driven by delays or reductions in marriage. These results contribute new evidence about the demographic effects of conflict and their underlying mechanisms, and broadly underline the importance of studying the second-order effects of organized violence on vulnerable populations. Keywords Fertility . Fertility ideals . Marriage . Armed conflict . Africa
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-02000923-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
* Brian C. Thiede [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
B.C. Thiede et al.
Introduction Armed conflict disrupts many domains of life beyond the immediate effects of violence and insecurity (Caldwell 2004; Ghobarah et al. 2003). Exposure to such events has been linked to adverse social and demographic outcomes, including poor child and adult health (Akresh et al. 2012; Minoiu and Shemyakina 2012; Torche and Shwed 2015), migration and displacement (Adhikari 2012; Bohra-Mishra and Massey 2011; Czaika and Kis-Katos 2009; Verwimp and van Bavel 2005; Williams et al. 2012), and declines in economic activity (World Bank 2011). Demographers have also hypothesized that conflict may affect reproductive goals and behaviors through mechanisms that include shifting patterns of marriage and spousal separation (Blanc 2004; Caldwell 2004; Cetorelli 20
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