Male Fertility and Internal Migration in Rural and Urban Sub-Saharan Africa

Ashira Menashe-Oren () and David A. Sánchez-Páez ()
Additional contact information
Ashira Menashe-Oren: Université Catholique de Louvain
David A. Sánchez-Páez: Université Catholique de Louvain

European Journal of Population, 2023, vol. 39, issue 1, No 10, 40 pages

Abstract: Abstract Subnational differences in male fertility within sub-Saharan African countries have not been explored, nor the differences in male fertility according to migration status been sufficiently probed. We study divergences in rural and urban male fertility and investigate the relationship between male fertility and migration across 30 sub-Saharan African countries. We employ 67 Demographic and Health Surveys to estimate completed cohort fertility among men aged 50–64 according to migration status. Overall, we find that urban male fertility has declined faster than rural male fertility, widening the gap between the sectors. Rural-urban migrant men have lower fertility than their rural non-migrant counterparts. Men migrating within the rural sector have similarly high fertility as rural non-migrants, while urban–urban migrant men have even lower fertility than non-migrant urban men. Using country-fixed effects models, we find that among men with at least secondary education, differences in completed cohort fertility by migration status are widest. When we consider the timing of migration in relation to the timing of the birth of the last child, we observe that migrant men are a select group, having around two children less than non-migrant rural men. There is also evidence of adaptation to destination, though to a lesser extent. Furthermore, migration within the rural sector does not seem to be disruptive to fathering. These results indicate that rural-to-urban migration has the potential to delay rural fertility decline, and that urban male fertility is likely to decline further, especially as the proportion of urban-to-urban migration increases.

Keywords: Male fertility; Internal migration; Sub-Saharan Africa; Rural; Urban (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10680-023-09659-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:eurpop:v:39:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s10680-023-09659-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10680

DOI: 10.1007/s10680-023-09659-2

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Population is currently edited by Helga A.G. de Valk

More articles in European Journal of Population from Springer, European Association for Population Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().