Dr. Jenny Trinitapoli, Sociology, Penn State University
A Moveable Feast?: The flexibility of fertility preferences in a transitioning Malawian community
Abstract:Recent studies suggest a rapid change in fertility preferences among young adults across sub-Saharan Africa. In this study, we shift the focus away from the established questions about fertility declines and stalled transitions to identify and examine an underexplored dimension along which fertility preferences vary within populations: flexibility. We use the Theory of Conjunctural Action (TCA) to motivate this exploration of flexibility schemas as a set of meaningful and measurable approaches to fertility. Using new data from the Tsogolo la Thanzi (TLT) study in southern Malawi, we examine the sensitivity of young Malawians' fertility preferences to a variety of hypothetical (but common) events that could alter fertility preferences and intentions, either in terms of shifting their the number of children they desire or the pace of their childbearing. We argue that flexibility is a dominant, but not monolithic, phenomenon. Flexibility exists along distinct dimensions of fertility preferences (quantum and tempo) and in different domains of life (e.g., family, economics, health). In Malawi we find that fertility preferences are most responsive to AIDS-related conditions and that the young-adult population can be characterized according to four measurable and distinct flexibility schemas, which moderate the association between perceived risk of HIV and fertility preferences. We argue that instability in preferences is too quickly dismissed as statistical noise or as thoughtlessness with regard to fertility, when in fact, for many flexibility and the instability that accompanies it is a purposeful orientation that merits serious efforts to understand.
