Fertility Decline In South Africa

INTRODUCTION
South African fertility rate is significantly lower than that of other countries in Southern and East Africa. A steady decline in fertility in developing nations took place in the late 1980s and 1990s, especially in the regions of Asia and Latin America. In contrast, Africa and particularly sub-Saharan Africa still lag behind in fertility terms. Reasons for South Africa’s low fertility compared to its neighbours is multifaceted which will be explained, later in more detail (Rossouw. L, et al, 2012).
Everything affecting the demographic character of a population? Its size, rate of increase, geographic distribution, age and sex structure, life expectancy and family composition? Has to reckon with one of three demo graphic variables,

The level of fertility of any given population is known to be influenced by both indirect and direct determinants and factors. The former refers to socio-economic and cultural system and includes factors such as education, rural-urban residence, religion, technology, housing, health, social security and so on. The latter are also referred to as proximate determinants or intermediate fertility variables and includes the proportion of women in the total population who marry, effective contraceptive use, induced abortion, length of amenorrhea (Caldwell and Caldwell, 1993).

In most Populations, fertility are directly related to marriage; married women generally have less children than unmarried women of the same age. Traditionally, births to unmarried women were not accepted in most societies, thus women began bearing children after marriage and continued throughout her reproductive lifetime as long as they remained married (Dan, 1999).

In Africa, marriage used to be almost universal and marital fertility was high while non-marital fertility was very low In the South African context, marriage seems to have lost its value as determinant of fertility. This can be seen, firstly, from the small and insignificant difference between marital and non-marital fertility of African women in South Africa: in 1996, the average TFR for African women who were never married or who were cohabiting was 3, 9, while that of those who were married was 4, 3 (Chimere-Dan, 1999). Secondly, it can be seen from the high rate of teenage pregnancies, mainly to unmarried girls (Dan,