Family, Fertility, and Economics [and Comments and Reply]

Family, fertility, and economics are inextricably intertwined. Yet despite intensive investigation, the interdependencies among these phenomena remain elusive. Expectations based on cross-cultural research and the theory of industrial society are contradicted by studies from throughout the industrial and industrializing world. Foundamental conceptual errors underlie these difficulties. This paper indicates how the interdependencies among family, fertility, and economics can be clarified by an alternative perspective. By positing that familial patterns (family structure and patterns of reproduction) emerge in adaptation to the economic constraints and options established by technology, it is possible parsimoniously to explain African urban familial patterns whose complexity has defied concise analysis for nearly half a century. The line of reasoning developed in this paper leads to conclusions about familial patterns and the interrelatedness of family, fertility, and economics that differ radically form the suppositions of conventional theory. Hypotheses developed from this framework point to differences in familial patterns in African urban and rural areas that have not been explored. For the Bassa of Monrovia, whose familial patterns appear to be equivalent to those reported for other urban populations in Africa, those hypotheses provide both a powerful and a parsimonious explanation for variations in family structure and fertility. Further work along lines outlined in this paper should prove most profitable.