Migration, Kinship Networks, and Reproduction in Nigeria

通常，发展中国家的农村向城市的移徙往往伴随着向核心家庭的转变和生育率的降低。但在撒哈拉以南非洲，生育率并不总是随着城市化而下降，这似乎与移民与家乡保持的高度活跃的社会和经济联系有关。利用人类学人口学，该项目将调查将尼日利亚城市移民与其农村联系起来的亲属网络如何影响生殖率（生育率）。这项研究的重点是尼日利亚北部最大城市卡诺的六个伊博语村庄和他们的移民。调查将采用生命周期方法，审查人生四个主要阶段（青春期、婚姻、生育和终止生育）中的每一个阶段如何带来不同的文化、行为和生殖健康问题，以及不同的移徙行为模式。方法包括对卡诺400户农村家庭进行随机调查，并对所有相关移民家庭进行调查，以及收集生活史和参与者观察。调查将引出生育率和移民历史，并探索家庭之间的社会和经济互动。这项研究将有助于我们理解发展中国家农村向城市迁移对生育模式的影响。

Typically, rural to urban migration in the developing world is often accompanied by a shift to nuclear families and reduced fertility. But in sub-Saharan Africa, fertility does not always decline with urbanization and this appears to be associated with the highly active, social and economic ties migrants maintain with home villages. Using anthropological demography, this project will investigate how reproductive rates (fertility) are influenced by the kinship networks that link urban migrants and their rural villages in Nigeria. The research focuses on six Igbo-speaking villages and their migrants to Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria. The PI will adopt a life cycle approach to examine how each of the four major life stages (adolescence, marriage, child-bearing, and cessation of child-bearing) entail different cultural, behavioral and reproductive health issues, as well different patterns of migratory behavior. Methods include a random survey of 400 rural households and a survey of all linked migrant households in Kano, as well as collection of life histories and participant observation. Surveys will elicit fertility and migration histories and explore social and economic interactions between households. This research will contribute to our understanding of rural to urban migration shapes fertility patterns in the developing world.