ABSTRACT
The most harmful distortion [in studies of fertility in the developing world] is probably in the nature of the family both as a social and economic unit. Western sociologists are capable of perceiving that the nuclear (or conjugal) family of the West, with an economic concentration within a group made up of husband, wife and non-adult children and usually residence restricted to the same group, is not universal – that traditionally it may have been a rarity elsewhere. But when carrying out social surveys outside of the West, they tend to treat other types of kinship as if the differences were restricted to having a few more financial responsibilities (Caldwell, 1977).
