Proceedings of The 5th International Conference on Research in Humanities and Social Sciences
Year: 2021
DOI:
A Comparative Study of the Impact of the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) on Trends in the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) in Rwanda
Etienne Gatera
ABSTRACT:
While several studies have been conducted on Second Demographic Transition (SDT), current research concerning the shift of the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in most regions of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is increasingly focused on epidemics such as AIDS, political tensions and crises, internal migration, forced displacement, and migration. The present study based in Rwanda highlighted the impact of the economy, the health sector, the impact of women’s education, as well as a higher attitude and perception of fertility among young women aged 15 to 25 as one of the most recent indicators in SSA. It is based on the results of a qualitative and guided questionnaire on fertility aimed at women aged 15–49 as well as data from the researcher’s experiments and from the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) 2019–20 report of the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR). It was observed that the Kuza n’ijoro (‘coming at night’) culture was at 18.86%, living apart together (LAT) at 17,76%, abortion at 5.62% among women without children and at 5.15% among women with children, 75.87% of women preferred to have 2–3 children, and 50.81% of women indicated 25–30 years as the preferred age of first marriage. The preference for single mothers increased by 1.97%. While the use of contraception by women without children plays a substantial role in 42.27% of rural and 54.65% of urban, it is highly valued by women with children in 82.82% of rural and 87.57% of urban. These factors contributed to the decrease in TFR, which resulted in SDT trends. Section 1 of this paper consists of the introduction, section 2 presents the literature review, section 3 details the methodology, and section 4 presents the result analysis, data discussion, and conclusion.
keywords: Kuza n’ijoro, Rwanda, Second Demographic Transition (SDT), Total Fertility Rate (TFR), Living Apart Together (LAT).