Rural Development and Attitudes towards Family Size in Côte d'Ivoire

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Kouamé Aka, Schellekens Jona.- Rural Development and Attitudes towards Family Size in Côte d'Ivoire The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of rural development on attitudes towards family size in Côte d'Ivoire. We assume that improved conditions of production and of living conditions of rural populations, through the development of village infrastructure and the modernization of agricultural production techniques, induce new attitudes towards reproduction, including a preference for small families. The results of our analyses, which are based on data collected in 21 rural communities across the national territory of Côte d'Ivoire, confirm the hypothesis. These results confirm those of previous studies conducted in Asia and Latin America, and are consistent with Kocher's hypothesis that modernization efforts in rural areas may result in a significant decline of fertility.

Does rural development necessarily encourage fertility decline? The general principles of "modernization" — increased productivity and consequently reduction of labour requirements — would suggest so. But the reality is more complex, as Aka KouamÉ and Jona Schellekens show here by their analysis of attitudes towards family size in rural Côte d'Ivoire: some new farming techniques lead to a diversification of tasks, and hence to an increased demand for labour. What does in fact lead couples to desire smaller families is the global context of rural modernization, including, for instance, the improvement of rural infrastructures.

Kouamé Aka, Schellekens Jona.- Desarrollo rural y actitudes al respecte del tamano de la familia en Costa de Marfil Este artículo analiza el impacto del desarrollo rural sobre la actitud en relación del tamano de la familia en Costa de Marfil. Partimos del postulado que la mejora en las condicio- nes de producción y de vida de las poblaciones rurales, conseguida gracias al desarrollo de las infraestructuras municipales y a la modernizaciôn de las técnicas de producción agrícola, genera la adopción de nuevas actitudes reproductivas y, en concreto, una preferencia por fami- lias de tamafio reducido. Los resultados de nuestros análisis, basados en datos obtenidos en 21 comunidades rurales repartidas por todo el territorio nacionál, confirman parcialmente tal hipótesis. Estos resultados coinciden con los obtenidos en estudios llevados a cabo en Asia y America Latina, y confirman la hipótesis de Kocher según la cual los esfuerzos de modernizaciôn del medio rural pueden contribuir a una disminución significativa de la fecundidad.