Reproductive control in apartheid South Africa

Population Studies
C E Kaufman

Abstract

Since its inception in 1974, the South African family planning programme has been widely believed to be linked with white fears of growing black numbers. The programme has been repeatedly attacked by detractors as a programme of social and political control. Yet, in spite of the hostile environment, black women's use of services has steadily increased. Using historical and anthropological evidence, this paper delineates the links between the social and political context of racial domination and individual fertility behaviour. It is argued that the quantitative success of the family planning programme is rooted in social and economic shifts conditioning reproductive authority and fertility decision-making. State policies of racial segregation and influx control, ethnic 'homeland' politics, and labour migration of men transformed opportunities and constraints for black women and men, and altered local and household expectations of childbearing. Women came to manage their own fertility as they increasingly found themselves in precarious social and economic circumstances.

References

Jan 1, 1985·The International Journal of Social Psychiatry·A W Burke
Jan 1, 1987·Journal of Southern African Studies·B B Brown
Jan 1, 1997·International Quarterly of Community Health Education·T Toroyan, P S Reddy

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Citations

Aug 14, 2010·Current Gerontology and Geriatrics Research·A von GuntenE Kövari
Feb 13, 2016·American Journal of Physical Anthropology·Susan PfeifferMandi Alblas
Jan 3, 2015·African Journal of AIDS Research : AJAR·Mary van der Riet, Tamaryn Jane Nicholson
Jan 30, 2003·Studies in Family Planning·Christine A Varga
Jul 14, 2001·Studies in Family Planning·C E KaufmanJ Stadler
May 3, 2019·International Journal for Equity in Health·Cara Margherio
Jan 17, 2020·European Review of Economic History·Johannes Norling

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