Collaborative Research: Social Context of Fertility Decisions in Tanzania

该项目是布朗大学一名人类学家和哈佛一名人口统计学家的合作研究，研究坦桑尼亚在全球经济变化背景下的生育率转变过程。 基本问题是解释为什么在区域生态和经济变化的背景下，一个民族会从高生育率和不采取计划生育措施向低生育率和普遍采取计划生育措施转变。 基本经济正在从锄头农业转向雇佣劳动，这影响了社会关系，并将传统的父权血统权威转向更以夫妇为中心的关系。 这项研究的主要假设是，向夫妻结合的转变，即伴侣就决定进行沟通，男女的利益趋于一致，有助于促进对生育限制的接受。 该项目将利用民族志技术确定关键的社会、亲属和家庭关系在家庭一级的地方表现形式，利用地方调查将微观一级的民族志见解扩大到区域一级，并对夫妇的共同决策和沟通方式进行深入访谈，以显示这些全球变化如何在基利曼哈罗这一地区发生，坦桑尼亚. 我们将比较两个村庄，一个是比较传统的穆斯林社区，一个是比较不传统的路德社区。 这项研究是一项广泛尝试的一部分，旨在了解生态、生产活动和社会关系之间的联系，这些联系影响生育率从高生育率到低生育率的转变。 它遵循了一个新的研究浪潮，将女性自主权和生育率与社会和经济背景联系起来。因此，这些结果将对面临类似情况的发展中世界其他地区的人口规划人员具有重要意义和有用。

This project is a collaborative study by an anthropologist from Brown University and a demographer from Harvard, studying the process of fertility transition in Tanzania in the context of global economic changes. The basic question is to explain why a transition from high fertility and no use of birth control to low fertility and the widespread use of birth control is happening in one ethnic group, in the context of changes in the regional ecology and economy. The basic economy is shifting away from hoe agriculture towards wage labor, which is impacting social relations and shifting the traditional patriarchal lineage authority towards more couple-centered relations. The major hypotheses of the study is that a shift towards a conjugal union where partners communicate about decisions and the interests of men and women converge is instrumental in facilitating the acceptance of fertility limitation. Using techniques of ethnography to establish the local manifestation of crucial social, kinship and family relations as they are instituted on the household level, local surveys to extend the micro-level ethnographic insights to a regional level, and intensive interviews with a sample of couples on their joint decision-making and communication styles, the project will show how these global changes are working out in this one region of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Two villages will be compared, a Muslim somewhat more traditional and a Lutheran somewhat less traditional community. This research is part of a broad attempt to understand the linkages between ecology, production activities and social relations which affect fertility transitions from high to low reproduction. It follows a new wave of research which links female autonomy and fertility to the social and economic context. As such the results will be significant and useful to population planners in other areas of the developing world which face similar situations.