ABSTRACT
Most analyses of fertility behaviour focus on three aspects of women’s status: education, employment and the husband-wife relationship. Few of them point out, however, that the relationship between each of these variables and fertility is neither direct nor simple. Each variable affects the others as well as fertility: employment opportunities are affected by education, conjugal interaction is influenced by the education and employment of the wife (and husband), and vice versa (Piepmeier and Adkins, 1973). In addition, there may be other variables that have an equal impact on fertility behaviour; this chapter explores one such possibility – the division of labour between the sexes within the rural household. In order to determine the effect of the sexual division of labour on fertility, several key questions must be looked at:
Under what conditions does a specific patterning in the sexual division of labour within the household generate a resource base for women?
Under what conditions are resource bases for women translated into power in other spheres and into the development of higher status for women?
How do specific patternings in the sex-based division of labour interact with components of women’s status to influence reproductive behaviour?
