This thesis is about birth control, gender and sexuality during the Swedish fertility transition (1880-1940). The aim is to study birth control at both an ideational and a practical level, as well as to analyse the ways in which birth control was constructed and realised through different notions of gender. The ideational level includes studies of the Swedish morality debates, norms and ideals concerning both gender and birth control, and the radical socialist propaganda for birth control. The practical level analyses how ordinary people experienced birth control and how they motivated their decision to limit childbearing. The thesis is grounded in post-structuralist gender theory. Gender is seen as a process with separate implications for men and women. Respectable women were supposed to demonstrate shyness, humility and sexual passivity while respectable men demonstrated responsibility, attentiveness and sexual knowledge. A respectable man should also protect his wife from pregnancy by abstaining from sex. These norms were to some extent challenged by radical propagandists who promoted mechanical birth control, rather than abstention, as a means to control fertility. In doing this they also recognised that women’s sexual needs were similar to those of men. The second half of the thesis studies birth control at the individual level. Through a collection of letters, written by ordinary men and women and sent to the Swedish Association of Sexual Education, individual experiences and attitudes to birth control are analysed. It is concluded that preventive birth control was a male responsibility. Prevention of pregnancy intervened with sexuality and was therefore an area difficult for women to enter. The most commonly used contraceptive methods during the 1930s were withdrawal and condoms – two methods which required male responsibility. The only birth controlling method that did not intervene with sexuality was abortion. This was a traditionally female responsibility and remained within a female sphere throughout the fertility transition. When people motivated their decision to apply birth control they referred to either the economic situation of the family, the reproductive health of the mother or the fact that they were not yet married. An overriding motive for the two first was a wish among the correspondents to remain respectable. Having a small family was in itself considered respectable by the end of the fertility transition. Acting responsibly in relation to ones children was another sign of respectability. For fathers this meant being able to support the family financially while mothers’ claim to respectability depended on the time they spent at home, with the children, as well as the appearance of both the children and the home. The thesis concludes that the perceptions and experiences of individual men and women are of great importance when the fertility transition is studied. Reproductive decisions were made by individuals, and changes in fertility are therefore the consequence of many people deciding to alter ther sexual life in order to control reproduction. Research on the fertility transition would therefore gain credibility from integrating sources of a more qualitative character into the study.

The subject of sexuality has been one of the most heated issues of the Popes throughout the history of the Catholic Church. The topics discussed by the various popes over the years, regarding sexuality, are limited to marriage, the conjugal act, the decline in morals, natural and artificial birth control, abortion, as well as more recently, modern methods of assisted reproduction. Moral changes and trends in modern society have had an impact on Catholic Religion. Modern society faces a culture that influences norms and expectations and seems to accept free sexuality. The popes respond slowly or not at all to these cultural trends.

This disseration is a case study of reproductive practice among Kurdish rural-urban migrant women in Van, Turkey. Van is one of the eastern provinces where high fertility persists despite the rapid fertility decline in the country. In Van and some other provinces where Kurdish population concentrates, however, fertility levels not only continue to be high but also increased in the period between 1980 and 2000. In order to explore the social dynamics behind the divergent fertility trend, this dissertation conducted interviewing with women in a Kurdish migrant neighbourhood and examined their reproductive experiences from the feminist political economic perspective that pays particular attention to reproduction&rsquo / s embeddededness in patriarchal social relations which are contingent upon political economic contexts. This dissertation argues that Kurdish migrants in the studied neighbourhood experienced, and still experience, considerable socioeconomic insecurities resulted from the neoliberal economic policy since the 1980s and the destructive mass displacement in the 1990s. Migration to the city could offer women empowering opportunities. Yet, while the traditional rural form of patriarchal practices lingered until recently, a new form of patriarchy seeks to restore masculine confidence in the context of insecurities by tightly controlling the woman&rsquo / s movement and considerably hinders her access to public spaces and hence reproductive healthcare. This dissertation proposes that enduring high fertility among the recent Kurdish migrants can be closely related to the form of patriarchy reconfigured in a way to work against the woman&rsquo / s autonomy which is essential for the exercise of reproductive rights.

This dissertation examines the creation and development of the United States government's Title X family planning program from 1965 to 1988. It argues that Title X became controversial when its supporters shifted their focus from promoting family self-sufficiency to celebrating individual reproductive freedom. The new individualist arguments profoundly threatened many Americans who wanted government policy to support the patriarchal nuclear family. Support for federally-subsidized family planning programs in the 1960s rested on an ideology of nuclear family economic independence. Advocates reasoned that birth control services would enable poor Americans, especially African-Americans, to have children only within stable, self-sufficient marriages. Using these arguments, family planning advocates developed nearly-unanimous support for family planning programs among federal policymakers. In the early 1970s, though, family planning supporters embraced feminist and anti-racist critiques of their earlier ideas, leading them to promote subsidized family planning as a route to individual women’s reproductive freedom. In turn, the dissertation examines the growth of the New Right in reaction to the new liberal focus on individual freedom. While some dissenters had opposed family planning programs in the 1960s, this opposition mushroomed in the 1970s as opponents identified Title X as a threat to the family. Family planning opponents focused on two aspects of subsidized birth control programs that endangered the patriarchal nuclear family: abortion and teenagers’ access to contraception. Both of these issues jeopardized the husband’s and father’s authority over his dependents. In addition, opponents claimed that federal government spending on Title X overused their tax dollars, compromising their own ability to be self-sufficient and, thus, the survival of their own independent nuclear families. As a result, they mobilized in opposition to Title X in the 1970s and 1980s. The dissertation uses a wide variety of archival materials, government documents, and published sources to document the trajectory of debates over federally-funded family planning programs / History

published_or_final_version / Medical Sciences / Master / Master of Medical Sciences

Part I. While births provide researchers with a natural dichotomy, fertility intentions are not inherently dichotomous. Intentions are predictions about the future and, as such, are couched in considerable uncertainty. Ignoring this uncertainty hides much of what could be learned from data on fertility intentions. This paper presents a model which allows analysis of the full range of intentions. After selecting a sample of women in the later stages of childbearing (women who intend less than two additional children) from the 1965 and 1970 National Fertility Studies, I show that: (1) substantial portions of women at this stage of the reproductive life cycle are indeed uncertain of their parity specific intention, (2) this uncertainty, like more firm intentions, varies by age and parity as my model predicts, and (3) there were significant shifts in the level of certainty between 1965 and 1970. Specifically, while intentions for third, fourth, and fifth births declined, more women "didn't know" if they intended to have another child or not. Among those not intending another child, more seemed uncertain of this intention in 1970 than did comparable women in 1965. In contrast, those intending another child seemed more certain in 1970. These changes in intentions and uncertainty suggest a need for caution in forecasting a decline in intended family size since this pool of uncertain women has the potential to increase the birth rate substantially. Part II. Adolescence brings into play forces which aid and hinder the intergenerational transmission of religious behavior. First, there is identification with parents and the inertia of childhood religious training. Secondly, a countervailing force is rebellious and assertive, and is aided by the American normative context of religious freedom. This analysis focuses on a net result of these forces--the correspondence between the prayerfulness of Catholic parents and their offspring in the period 1963 to 1974. Results indicate that parents strongly influence the frequency of their offspring's prayer. But the strength of the effect does vary significantly by the parent's sex, the adolescent's sex, and the nature of the parent's behavior (i.e. whether parents pray frequently, infrequently, or with moderate frequency). Over this period, however, there was great stability in the structure of religious socialization within the Catholic family. Observed marginal change indicates that the frequency of mothers' and daughters' prayer declined, and to a lesser extent, so did fathers' and sons' prayer. Importantly, the decline in adolescents' prayer does not indicate a lesser parental influence. Instead, parents seem less religious due, I argue, to the impact of the birth control encylical, Human Vitae. The adolescents' decline in prayer is evidence of an "echo" in the following generation. Part III. The modernization process and America's unique historical development caused changes in both the structure and function of American religion. The trend has been toward more individualized beliefs and "privatized" religious behaviors. The structure of this "privatized religion" seems capable of performing important functions in post-industrial society. Firm beliefs provide a sense of meaning and belonging in everyday life and allows answers to "ultimate questions". These beliefs can provide support in times of crisis. Finally, private religious behaviors can provide rewarding experiences in and of themselves. Using frequency of prayer as a measure of the intensity of "privatized" religious beliefs, I find that prayer is associated with greater happiness or psychological well-being. This effect is pervasive with respect to the respondent's sex and the Protestant-Catholic distinction. However, prayer most affects the happiness of those under 30 years of age and those over 50. This variation by age suggests that prayer is most important where institutional ties and support are weakest.

This study adopted a case study design to understand women and contraceptive use in the Diepsloot community, an impoverished urban informal settlement, north of Johannesburg. It was guided by feminist and critical theory, and made use of the qualitative research paradigm. The history of the provision of reproductive health services in South Africa has been discussed as a process that has both marginalised the participation of previously disadvantaged communities and also limited the opportunities for effective contraceptive use in the post-apartheid era. The main objectives were to understand reproductive health experiences of women and their knowledge of modern contraception in relation to the ecological environment in which they are embedded. I used the non-probability purposive and theoretical sampling methods. The sample size was theory driven and largely determined by the type of data acquired after a series of interviews with twenty women over a five month period. Data collection ceased when data saturation was reached. Individual interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with twenty primary respondents. For triangulation purposes, primary health care service providers from the two local clinics were interviewed. Also one focus group discussion was done with a group of eight men; two traditional healers and the manager at the local Marie Stopes clinic were also interviewed for the same purpose. I used thematic analysis as the method of analysing the data. Thematic analysis moves beyond merely describing the data but identifies both the unspoken and obvious ideas within data. It was the intersectionality of contraceptive use and the unique lived experiences of disadvantaged women that had inspired the study and all methods employed were aimed at a deeper understanding of the effects of the cultural, social and economic environment on the reproductive health choices of the women. The data were analysed according to the seven themes that emerged from the study and these were: empowerment and reproductive health decision making, level of education as a determining factor in contraceptive use, contraceptive knowledge, contraceptive dialogue as a contributing factor to contraceptive use and choice, opinions on the prevention of pregnancy, spacing versus limiting the number of births and the availability and accessibility of modern contraceptive methods. The inextricable link between education, poverty and gender inequality highlighted the need to empower women in marginalised communities. Due to poverty and lack of education, most women were powerless and not independent to make favourable reproductive health decisions. Knowledge of modern contraceptive methods was limited and the most popularly used method was the contraceptive injection. The circumstances of the women in this study and those of the Diepsloot community speak to the broader economic issues of the country and reflect the need to prioritise women’s education; to create economic opportunities for women and to enhance the participation of the poor and marginalised communities. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

There is a belief that economic resources are growing at a slow pace such that they fail to meet the demands made by an increase in population. Because of the critical contribution fertility makes to the high growth rates of a nation it is important to understand factors behind its change. This study seeks to contribute to such an understanding by providing an assessment of fertility and its proximate determinants in Lesotho. It utilises data from the 2001 Lesotho Demographic Survey and the 2002 Lesotho Demographic Survey Supplementary Enquiry. The study reveals a moderate decline in fertility between 1977 and 2002 (from 5.8 to 4.5). This decline in fertility is attributable to a rise in contraceptive prevalence and an increase in non-marriage. The index of marriage declined by 27.5 percent between 1977 and 2002, from 0.69 to 0.50 and the singulate mean at marriage increased from 20 years to 24 years among females. Thus making non-marriage the greatest fertility- reducing factor in 2002. While, the index of contraception decline by 30.1 percent from 0.93 to 0.65 and the national CPR increased from 23.2 percent in 1991/92 to 43.9 percent in 2002. As a result contraception became the second greatest inhibitor of fertility. Though the actual effect of postpartum infecundability could not be determined due to non-availability of data, the study shows that in 1977 and 1991/92 the index of postpartum infecundability had the highest fertility-reducing effect in Lesotho. Moreover, the effect of sterility and abortion on fertility decline in Lesotho was found to be small. However, further research needs to address these factors as their effect could be masked by non-availability of data. It seems that further decline in fertility in Lesotho will be a result of an increase in contraceptive use and age at marriage. To promote these two the government should: 1) show a strong commitment both politically and financially, to limiting population growth through family planning 2) expand women's educational and economic opportunities. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

Infant mortality is generally regarded as an indicator of the standard of health and it is probably one of the best measures of the general socio-economic conditions in a society. There are indications world wide (including South Africa), of slowing down in the decrease of infant mortality rate, and a continued existence of wide variation in infant mortality levels. Conversely, it has also been noted that some relatively poor countries have managed to achieve low levels of infant mortality as often experienced by wealthier nations. The case for more attention to be paid to understanding the changing dynamics of infant mortality is compelling. Using the Demographic and Health Survey, which was conducted in Transkei in 1987, this study has looked into levels and patterns of infant mortality in Transkei and factors influencing them. The accuracy of the data was determined by using the Myers' Blended Index and Life Table Model. Response errors usually arise in developing countries from omission of vital events and misstatement of dates and age. A direct method of estimation was used to determine the level of infant mortality, in Transkei, during the period 1984-1986. Socio-economic and medical factors influencing infant mortality levels were identified using univariate analysis and multiple logistic function. The results of this study indicate that these factors significantly influence infant mortality in Transkei. In particular, income, womens' employment, duration of breastfeeding, age of the mother when giving birth, spacing of births and vaccination are important factors influencing infant mortality in the region. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1992.

Since the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development there has been a shift away from meeting demographic targets towards meeting the reproductive goals of individual men and women. Partially as a response to the increase in the level of HIV infection, and the associated high levels of STIs, there has been an increasing focus on integrating HIV/STI services within mainstream Maternal Child Health and Family Planning programmes. Thus clients attending clinics that provide integrated services have the opportunity to receive multiple services during a single visit to a facility. The aim of this research was to evaluate the process of integrating FPIMCH and STI/HIV services in urban and rural areas within KwaZulu-Natal, using data gathered form semi structured interviews with clients leaving the health facilities. The research also examined the overall quality of care received within the integrated clinics. The results show that clients rarely receive a range of services on a single visit, despite the integration of services. In most cases, clients do receive the services for which they attended the health facility. However the study found that providers are missing important opportunities to inform, educate and counsel clients on a variety of reproductive health matters. This is important if we are to avoid the negative consequences of an unwanted pregnancy and STIs (including HIV/AIDS). It was also found that the overall quality of care within integrated clinics was low amongst all clients attending the facility. / Thesis (M.Dev.Studies)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.