Search results

This study examines ethnic variations in children's living arrangements among black South Africans. Using data from the 1996 South African population and housing census and descriptive and multivariate analyses, I explore if there are differences in children's residence patterns by ethnicity, identify the most common forms of household structure in which children live, and examine the role of various background factors in determining these living arrangements. Descriptive results show marked ethnic variations in the living arrangements of children, with more than 50 per cent of children living in extended households as opposed to living in a two-parent nuclear household or a single-parent nuclear household. Multinomial logistic regression results also show large differences in children's living arrangements across groups, underscoring the salience of ethnicity. Other individual and household-level factors that have significant effects on children's living arrangements include child's gender and schooling status, the head of household's level of schooling and gender, household size, standard of living and place of residence. For instance, children living in urban areas are more likely to live in extended households than those living in rural areas.

South African policies have historically emphasized employment as the reason for immigration. In post-apartheid South Africa, stories about how "immigrants take away our jobs" abound in the mass media, yet few empirical studies have been undertaken to examine the validity of this claim. This study looks at the relationship between migration status, nativity and labor force outcomes in the post-apartheid labor market. Our results suggest that migrants are more likely to participate in the labor force and to be gainfully employed than the indigenous population. Foreign migrants enjoy the highest labor force participation rates and employment rates in South Africa. South African-born internal migrants also have significantly higher labor force outcomes than do nonmigrants.

▪ Abstract  African society is quite distinct in both its relationship to the rest of the world and its history. Africa seems beset by a myriad of crises, from famines, to civil wars, to economic meltdowns. In addition to these crises, profound population and social change has occurred. These changes are having extraordinary socioeconomic, political, and cultural consequences. Africa's demographic regimes have also been profoundly affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, urbanization processes, and environmental change. This review focuses on how African population growth and urbanization are clashing with constraints unique to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We provide an empirical profile describing population growth and constraints to this growth and the improvement in the quality of life in Africa. We suggest that more attention needs to be placed on the structural aspects of population dynamics. Although this review makes some reference to North Africa, the focus is sub-Saharan Africa.

Between 1990 and 2000, the total fertility rate (TFR) in Ethiopia declined moderately from 6.4 to 5.9 children per woman of reproductive age. During the same period, the TFR in the capital city of Addis Ababa declined from 3.1 to 1.9 children per woman. Even more striking than the magnitude of this decline is that it occurred in the absence of a strong and effective national family planning program. In this study, the components of this fertility decline are identified using the Bongaarts framework of the proximate determinants of fertility. The results of a decomposition analysis indicate that a decrease in the age‐specific proportions of women who are married, followed by an increase in contraceptive use are the most important mechanisms by which fertility has declined in Addis Ababa. Poor employment prospects and relatively high housing costs are likely factors that encourage couples to delay marriage and reduce marital fertility.