An important fertility decline was registered all over the world in the last four decades with
different speeds depending on the social and economic development of regions. The theory of
the demographic transition points to decreasing child mortality, educational expansion,
economic growth and modernisation as drivers of this decline. Yet, with relatively limited
socio-economic progress and decrease in child mortality sub-Saharan African countries also
experienced fertility decline in the same period. Some researchers portray the transition in
African countries in the 1980s as crisis-led fertility decline. Eloundou-Enyegue (2000)
claimed that the economic downturn in Cameroun contributed substantially to the fertility
decline, and Woldemicael (2008) linked the border conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia to a
drop in fertility rates.
During the late eighties Rwanda suffered from a severe economic crisis that deteriorated the
living conditions of its people. This profound economic crisis has been linked to the decline
of fertility between 1983 and 1992 when the total fertility rate fell from 8.3 to 6.2 and the
desired family size from 6.3 to 4.2 children per woman (Olson 1994, Uvin 1998). As such the
start of the Rwandan fertility decline seems to fit in a crisis-led fertility decline as discussed in
the eighties and early nineties in the framework of the African economic crises and structural
adjustment programmes.
However, in the 1990s the fertility decline came to a halt in several countries in sub-Saharan
Africa. Rwanda is among those Sub-Saharan countries which experienced a stall in fertility
decline in the 1990s before resuming its course after year 2005 (Table 1).
The aim of this thesis is to find the factors that may account for the shifts in fertility decline in
Rwanda. Two points might be noted. The first one is that the period before the stall in fertility
decline in Rwanda was characterised by great efforts invested in family planning programs
with the creation of the Office National de la Population (ONAPO) (May, Mukamanzi and
Vekemans 1990). The second point is that the stall in fertility decline in Rwanda occurred in
the same the period as the civil war, which culminated in the 1994 genocide and its aftermath
that distressed the country severely for over a decade. The total fertility rate in 2005 (6.1) was
at the same level of that of 1992 (6.2).