A Cautionary Note on Public Policies in Conflict

Land Reform and Human Fertility in Rural Egypt

Bibliographic Data

ID7728042
AuthorsC Shannon Stokes, Wayne A Schutjer
Year1983
Volume16
Issue1
Pages97
Publication date1983-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4159 • E-ISSN: 2151-6227
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/421598
OpenAlexW2000156129
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited10

This paper argues that access to land has 2 major dimensions that are likely to influence fertility in opposite directions: 1) the size of holdings to which a family has access for cultivation purposes; and 2) the land ownership regulations which govern the use of land and the distribution of produce from it. The 2 dimensions can act separately or together. An individual may have use rights (renters sharecroppers and lessees) or receive income from management and agricultural production activities; whereas the owner receives an equity return on his investment. An owner-operator receives both types of returns. Data for this paper was drawn from a larger study of fertility and family planning in rural Egypt. Interviews were conducted in 1978 with 685 households randomly selected from 12 villages in Lower Egypt. 561 households in which the female respondent was the only legal wife of the head of the household are used in the final sample. 3 sets of independent variables are studied: land variables socioeconomic variables; and demographic control variables. Fertility is measured by the number of children ever born including stillbirths. The data indicate that fertility is positively related to size of cultivated area; and land ownership is negatively related to fertility. Households with larger holdings could more effectively utilize child labor and therefore had higher fertility rates. However landowners had fewer children because of their higher income; they tended to invest in child quality such as more education and better health care. Such investments are thought to raise the price of children and thus lead to lower fertility. 16% of the land owners compared to 11% of tenents and 22% of landless laborers were currently practicing contraception. The differences are not large enough to be statistically significant although the direction of the relationship is as expected. Failure to attain statistical significance may be due to the low overall use of contraception among rural Egyptian women (17%). These findings illustrate the potential importance of the connection between land ownership policies in the rural sector and population change in less developed countries. Also correlated were female age at marriage and education. More precise information is needed on the fertility impacts of various types of land reforms involving different ownership patterns land-use rights and size of holdings if conflict between land reform policies and population-policies is to be avoided

Agriculture · Archaeology · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Fertility · Geography · Land reform · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Demography · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics

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