Contingent Lives: Fertility, Time, and Aging in West Africa Volume 2

by Caroline H. Bledsoe

Book Overview

Most women in the West use contraceptives in order to avoid having children. But in rural Gambia and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, many women use contraceptives for the opposite reason--to have as many children as possible.

Using ethnographic and demographic data from a three-year study in rural Gambia, Contingent Lives explains this seemingly counterintuitive fact by juxtaposing two very different understandings of the life course:...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226058522
• ISBN13: 9780226058528
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.1"