Balancing Conditions of Existence and Reproduction

This study focuses on the declining births rate in the district of Murang’a, Kenya. The central aim is to find key factors that led to this change in fertility behaviour and subsequently to the emerging demographic transition in this specific part of Kenya. Research showed that inhabitants of the district perceive the drop in fertility rate being a consequence of changes in their life conditions such as land scarcity and economic hardship and therefore marriages will not be entered into as frequently. This thesis is inspired by critical and anthropological fieldwork and argues that fertility behaviour must be seen in the local context in which people say they combine both a western/modern lifestyle and the local life-ways. Modernisation theory entailing economics, industrialisation, human mobility, urbanisation etc…, can partially define mechanisms and factors which are responsible for a decline in fertility. The situational context and the emerging ‘modern’ or global standards of life have to be taken in account to see how the changes in fertility behaviour come about in the community, and to know if these changes may lead to lasting fertility decline.