The impact of war, famine, and economic decline on marital fertility in ethiopia

1999/05/01 by David P. Lindstrom, Betemariam Berhanu · 214 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Medicine · Social Sciences · #Agricultural risk and resilience #Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences #Demographic economics #Demography #Economics #Famine #Fertility #Geography #Global Maternal and Child Health #Marital status #Population #Socioeconomic status #Socioeconomics #Sociology #Survey data collection

paper · pdf · doi:10.2307/2648112

published in Demography 36(2), 247-261 (Springer Science+Business Media)

openalex publication_date 1999/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

Abstract

We examine recent fertility trends in Ethiopia for evidence of short- and long-term responses to famine, political events, and economic decline. We use retrospective data on children ever born from the 1990 National Family and Fertility Survey to estimate trends in annual marital conception probabilities, controlling for women's demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The results of our analysis provide evidence of significant short-term declines in conception probabilities during years of famine and major political and economic upheaval. In the longer term, marital fertility in both urban and rural areas declined in the 1980s after increasing moderately in the 1970s.

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