African Population Studies Union for African Population Studies ISSN: 0850-5780 Vol. 12, Num. 2, 1997

African Population Studies/Etude de la Population Africaine, Vol. 12, No. 2, September/septembre 1997

Non-marital Teenage Childbearing in Southern Africa : The Case of Namibia

Orieji CHIMERE-DAN

University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Code Number: ep97016

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we used data from the 1992 Demographic and Health Survey to examine proximate and socioeconomic correlates of non-marital teenage childbearing in Namibia. The timing of first sexual intercourse, current marital status and contraceptive use before first birth are strongly associated with teenage motherhood. Region of residence and educational status are two most powerful influences on pattern of teenage childbearing. Women in the Northwest and those with more than a primary level of education tend to experience childbearing in their teens than others. A framework for understanding these results in Namibia and other countries in Southern Africa is suggested.

RÉSUMÉ

Dans cette communication, des données issues de l’enquête démographique et de santé de 1992 sont utilisées pour examiner les corrélations socio-économiques proches, de la procréation des adolescentes célibataires, en Namibie. Le moment du premier rapport sexuel, la situation matrimoniale du moment et la pratique contraceptive avant la première naissance sont étroitement liés avec la maternité chez les adolescentes. La région d’origine et le niveau d’instruction sont les deux facteurs qui influent le plus fortement sur les tendances à la maternité chez les adolescentes. Les femmes au nord-ouest et celles qui ont un niveau d’instruction dépassant celui de l’enseignement primaire sont plus enclines que d’autres à avoir des enfants avant l’âge de 20 ans. Il a été suggéré que soit élaboré un cadre qui facilite la compréhension de ces résultats en Namibie et dans d’autres pays d’Afrique australe.

INTRODUCTION

There are two forms of teenage childbearing. One takes place within and the other outside a socially recognized marital union. Clear and simple as it is, this distinction has not been emphasized in many studies of teenage childbearing in Africa. Teenage childbearing within a marriage is not an uncommon feature of the social system in Africa and other developing regions of the world. Women marry early and childbearing is expected soon after marriage. Although the health risks of teenage childbearing are known, the cultural support for this practice, as the expected outcome of early marriage, remains strong in Africa. In societies with many women married in young ages, a high rate of teenage childbearing would not be surprising.

An important feature of the prevailing reproductive regime in Namibia and other countries of Southern Africa is the high rates of sexual, contraceptive and childbearing activities by women who have never been married. In two related studies about fertility and contraceptive patterns in South Africa, for instance, the total fertility rate for never married women is as high as 3.4 while as

many as 55 per cent of them use a modern method of contraception compared to the 54 per cent prevalence rate among women who are currently in a marriage (Chimere-Dan, 1996; 1997). Similar high rates of childbearing and contraception among women who have never been married have been reported in other countries of Southern Africa including Zimbabwe and Botswana. This pattern of reproductive behaviour has important implications for demographic change in Southern Africa. This paper examines the socioeconomic and proximate determinants of teenage childbearing in the case of Namibia.

DATA AND METHOD

The Namibian Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) of 1992 collected information from a nationally representative sample of 5421 women aged 15-49 in Namibia. Details of the survey and findings are provided in the National Report (Katjiuanjo et al., 1993). Information from the standard recode file of the NDHS is used to examine the correlates of non-marital teenage childbearing.

The three proximate determinants examined for their contributions to the rate of non-marital teenage motherhood are marital status, timing of the first sexual intercourse and the use of contraception. The socioeconomic factors used in the analysis are region of usual residence, type of place of usual current residence, type of place of childhood residence, educational status and current work status. Bivariate and multivariate techniques are used to analyse the determinants of teenage childbearing.

Only women who have ever had a baby are included in the study. Current teenagers are excluded from the detailed analysis because their motherhood experience as an age group was censored by the timing of the survey. There is a problem in the study of socioeconomic correlates of teenage childbearing using cross-sectional data. We are in effect correlating present socioeconomic profile with an event (teenage motherhood) that happened sometime in the past when some of the background characteristics of each woman were different from what they are today. This problem arises mainly due to the limited nature of the retrospective information collected in Demographic and Health Surveys. For younger teenage mothers, the problem is not serious. Their reproductive experiences are fairly recent occurrences. Their current socioeconomic status would not have changed considerably since they had their first baby. This is not necessarily the case with older women in the sample. The problem is not encountered with regard to the proximate determinants examined. All proximate determinants analysed here refer to the status of the women at the time of motherhood.

RESULTS

Table 1 shows the percentage of all women who became mothers in different teenage groups in Namibia. Teenage mothers constitute 38 per cent of all women in Namibia, with generally high percentages in younger age groups. However, there is a slight decline in the proportion of women who became mothers before age 15. In contrast, no declining trend is observed in teenage childbearing among women aged from 15 to 19 years.

Table 2 shows the association between the percentage of all mothers who had their first birth as teenagers and different socioeconomic characteristics. The North East has more teenage mothers than other regions of the country. Women who lived in rural areas before the age of 12 appear more likely to be teenage mothers than those who were brought up in urban areas. Educational status is inversely associated with the incidence of teenage motherhood. Work status does not show statistically significant bivariate associations with age pattern of childbearing. Table 3 shows significant differences in the socioeconomic predictors of teenage motherhood in Namibia.

Table 1: Teenage mothers as percentage of all women in reproductive ages Namibia 1992

 Table 2: Socioeconomic differences in the number of teenage mothers as a percentage of all mothers in Namibia, 1992

Table 3: Logistic regression of socioeconomic determinants of teenage childbearing¹ in Namibia, 1992

Proximate Determinants of Teenage Childbearing

The bivariate association of age patterns of first birth and five proximate factors are shown in Table 4. The proximate factors indicate strong statistical associations with age at first birth. Women who have never used contraception, those who did not use contraception before their first birth, and those who had their first baby out of wedlock are more likely than others to be teenage mothers.

Two models are examined, one using five and the other using three proximate factors as shown in Table 5. Considering model 1, marriage and ever use of contraception are not statistically associated with teenage childbearing. The two factors that are highly associated with teenage childbearing are age at first sexual intercourse and timing of the first use of contraception. Women who engage in sexual intercourse before the age of 18 are about two times more likely than others to become teenage mothers. Early marriage is, therefore, a strong predictor of teenage childbearing.

Socioeconomic Influences on the Proximate Determinants of Teenage Childbearing

The effects of simultaneous control of the five socioeconomic factors on their influence on the three most important proximate determinants of teenage childbearing are shown in Tables 6, 7 and 8. Region of residence and educational status have the most significant impacts on the age at first sexual intercourse. Women in the Northwest are about two times more likely than others to initiate sexual relations before the age of 18. Region of residence and education are strongly correlated with marital status at the birth of first child. All background factors except childhood residence contribute significantly to the use of contraception before first birth.

Table 4: Teenage mothers as a percentage of all mothers by proximate determinants of teenage childbearing, Namibia 1992

Table 5: Logistic regression of proximate determinants of teenage motherhood, Namibia 1992

* = p< 0.05; **= p< 0.01; ***=p< 0.001

Table 6: Logistic regression of the socioeconomic determinants of age at first sexual intercourse, Namibia 1992

* = p<0.05; ** = p<0.01; ***= p<0.001

Table 7: Logistic regression of socioeconomic factors affecting the marital status at the time of first birth, Namibia 1992

* = p<0.05; ** = p<0.01; *** = p<0.001

Table 8: Logistic regression of determinants of contraceptive use before first birth by Namibia 1992

* = p<0.05; **= p<0.01; *** = p<0.001

DISCUSSION

A major question that arises from these Namibian data is why unmarried teenagers become mothers. For many population researchers, the high incidence of non-marital teenage motherhood is evidence of a high demand for modern methods of contraception. From a conventional perspective, childbearing by non-married teenagers is an unwanted consequence of teenage sexual and reproductive health behaviour (see Senderowitz and Paxman, 1985). The role of national family planning programmes should be emphasized in this regard. It is a common argument that a high rate of teenage motherhood is indicative of national family planning programmes that have not made adequate provision for the prevention of unwanted births by teenage women due to general institutional failures, cultural norms, religious beliefs and general misconception about contraception (see Ahrenson-Pandikow, 1992). The assumption is that if contraceptives are easily accessible to teenagers, the incidence of teenage motherhood will be drastically reduced. While this viewpoint highlights an aspect of the problem, namely the direct technical side of intervention, it fails to explain adequately the cases of Namibia and other countries in Southern Africa. First, if the incidence of non-marital teenage childbearing is put into a regional perspective, there is no strong negative correlation between the strength of family planning programmes and the incidence of non-marital teenage motherhood in Africa. In fact, the experience of South Africa suggests a positive correlation between the two variables.

Another framework sees the prevailing rate of non-marital teenage childbearing as a feature of an emerging pattern of reproductive regime in the sub-region. From this perspective, the task of explaining the high rate of non-marital teenage childbearing in Namibia and other countries in the region involves an analysis of not only the availability and accessibility of contraception to unmarried teenagers but also wider issues that include the social context, the position of teenage women in the family and society and their motivations and aspirations for adopting forms of sexual behaviour that have a potential to result in motherhood.

The high rates of teenage motherhood and childbearing outside marriage appears to be a manifestation of an emerging reproductive regime in the sub-region of Southern Africa, a regime that is characterized by a separation of motherhood from marriage. Although marriages and the traditional family life are under great pressure from various quarters, African societies still place a high premium on children, and having children remains a principal determinant of the social status of a woman. In this context, it is conceivable that to a good number of teenagers, motherhood could be a calculated strategy of social and economic advancement.

Preston-Whyte (1990; 1993) makes good progress in this direction by describing the social and cultural environment generated by the grand apartheid policies in which teenage and adult childbearing outside a marital union could be considered rational strategies. In the environment of severe material deprivation, popular models of marriage and the family were gradually rendered impracticable for many disadvantaged couples by the apartheid laws and their consequences. Marriage and cohesion of nuclear or extended families were weakened as many men were forced to be separated from their families for a long time as a necessity of work. Most men in the urban areas had wives in the rural areas who could not join them because of apartheid laws. The few women in the urban areas entered into temporary sexual liaisons with a full awareness of the possibility that their urban male partners had wives at home. In extreme but not uncommon cases, some men and women were forced by the exigencies of the urban life to enter into marriage of convenience. In response to the experience of prolonged spousal abstinence, rural women assumed the responsibility of household head while their urban counterparts cautiously guarded their autonomy from migrant men. Realistic assessments of this situation led many women to reject the centrality of a formal marital union for childbearing. Many unmarried but socially successful mothers became important role models especially to young women who found this a reason to believe that childbearing outside a conventional marital union is no longer stigmatised, and makes social and economic sense.

To suggest that teenage childbearing outside marriage is a rational survival strategy does not necessarily commit one to argue that it is the best of all options open to young women. Nor is the idea any more startling than what we already know about some of the reasons why teenage girls engage in consenting sexual relations. Many will argue that if non-marital teenage childbearing is a conscious choice it is a bad one. In most cases biological fathers of babies born to teenage mothers are not committed to a medium or long term relationship. If they are young, they do not have the economic security to support a mother and child. If they are old, they most probably have other relationships which they consider more important or which can compete more favourably with a commitment to an unmarried teenage mother. In the end the responsibilities of caring for the baby and economic and emotional support for the teenage mothers fall largely on their parents and grandparents. Again, unlike the situation in many Western societies, unmarried teenage mothers could not look to the state for economic support as a result of their childbirth. There are no adequate social welfare systems in Namibia or other countries of Southern Africa that provide generous housing and monthly stipends to single mothers for the maintenance of a child. These valid arguments withstanding, there is a compelling case in the search for determinants of non-marital teenage childbearing to address the constraints imposed by poverty and the limited opportunities for socioeconomic advancement of young Namibian women in the colonial apartheid society of the recent past. A perspective that situates non-marital teenage childbearing in its socioeconomic and cultural context improves our understanding by pulling together in one analytical framework exogenous forces and the volitional factors on the part of teenagers in Namibia and other comparable societies in Southern Africa.

REFERENCES

• Ahrenson-Pandikow, H. 1992. Survey of Attitudes Towards the Use of Contraception in Namibia. Namibian Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Namibia, Windhoek.
• Chimere-Dan, O. 1997. "Recent Fertility Patterns and Population Policy in South Africa", Development Southern Africa 14(1):1-20.
• ______________. 1996. Contraceptive Behaviour in South Africa. Unpublished Research Report. Population Research Programme, University of the Witwatersrand. Johannesburg.
• Katjiuanjo, P; Titus, S; Zauana, M and Boerma, J.T. 1993. Namibia Demographic and Health Survey 1992. Ministry of Health and Social Services, Windhoek, Namibia.
• Preston-Whyte, E..M. 1993. ‘’Women who are not married: fertility, 'Illegitimacy', and the Nature of Households and Domestic Groups Among Single African Women in Durban’’, South African Journal of Sociology, 24 (3): 63-71.
• ________________. 1990. "Qualitative Perspectives on Fertility Trends Among African Teenagers". In South Africa’s Demographic Future. Edited by Mostert, W. and J.M. Lotter. Pretoria. Human Sciences Research Council.
• Senderowitz, J. and J.M. Paxman. 1985. ‘’Adolescent Fertility: Worldwide Concerns’’. Population Bulletin. 40(2).

Copyright 1997 - Union for African Population Studies