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| Title: | Birth Control and Reproduction in Kikuyu Society: The Case from Murang'a District in Kenya |
| Author: | Ishii, Yoko |
| Year: | 1997 |
| Periodical: | African Study Monographs |
| Volume: | 18 |
| Issue: | 3-4 |
| Pages: | 191-201 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Kenya |
| Subjects: | Kikuyu family planning Women's Issues Health and Nutrition Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Family Planning and Contraception Health, Nutrition, and Medicine Cultural Roles Family Life |
| External link: | https://jambo.africa.kyoto-u.ac.jp/kiroku/asm_normal/abstracts/pdf/18-3&4/18-3&4%20191-201.pdf |
| Abstract: | In the 1980s there was a sharp change in the attitudes of the Kikuyu, the largest ethnic group in Kenya, towards birth. In the 1970s the median number of children in a Kikuyu household was 7 to 8. By 1994, this had dropped to 5. Demographers and economists tend to attribute this phenomenon to the degree of development in Kikuyu areas, the level of education, and modernization. There is, however, another key to understanding Kikuyu adaptation to social changes, the process of oral communication, family planning, and awareness of mutual aid deeply penetrating Kikuyu society. Based on data gathered over two months in 1996 in Gishiru village, Kandara Division, the author describes factors influencing the changes in Kikuyu ideas on reproduction that have led to their acceptance of national population policy. These include the rising cost of education and land scarcity, the declining appeal of polygny in a situation where many wives and children no longer automatically symbolize wealth, and the ways in which the activities of family planning officials and fieldworkers have been interpreted and developed by the Kikuyu themselves. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. |
