Persistent high fertility in sub-Saharan Africa has been of concern to demographers and
global health experts for decades. Sub-Saharan African fertility levels and trends are singled
out as markedly higher and different than the rest of the world and from what is expected
based on historic fertility trends. Global population projections, which indicate continued
population growth in sub-Saharan Africa while population stabilizes and declines elsewhere
brings renewed focus on African fertility. This dissertation seeks to address some of the challenges
to understanding modern fertility regimes and fertility dynamics posed by persistent
high fertility in sub-Saharan Africa by examining it in a global, demographic context.
Population measures of sterility are traditionally constructed for women, despite fertility
and sterility being conditions of the couple. Estimates of male sterility provide insight
into population-level sterility and complement estimates based solely on women. Chapter 2
seeks to estimate male sterility for the Gwembe Tonga of Zambia using male birth histories
collected by the Gwembe Tonga Research Project from 1957 to 1995, while providing context
by estimating female sterility for the Gwembe Tonga as well as female sterility in all of Zambia
from Zambian DHS data (1992, 1997, 2001-02, and 2007).