Gender relation and fertility In Neglasari Village, Jasinga Sub-District, Bogor Regency, West Java Province

Abstract

Fertility is not merely a biological or demographical issue. Since it is embedded to social relation of human being, it is closely related to their desire and values. Seeing fertility beyond numbers will be useful to explore the desire of each actor, how do they relate to each other and with the community, values and other sociological and psychological aspect embedded in the activity. This research tries to explore the way the relation between gender and fertility work, especially since there is no generic theory has been built on the ground of this subject. The research employed qualitative method to explore and gain understanding on how the women relate to other actor. Taking advantage from previous researches, the framework is built on Mason and Smith (2003) women autonomy aspect, desired fertility and Bongaarts (1982) proximate determinant concept. Proximate determinants are employed to link the gap between social-economic and biological variables, as there is an undeniable fact that fertility is the result of a biological activity. Result of the research shows that although the value in the community as a traditional Islamic community suggests high number of fertility, women in this study area to some extent able to manage their control over fertility. The control is operated through desired fertility and the proximate determinants, i.e. using of contraception and postponing age of marriage which are affected by women autonomy and power aspects as proposed by Mason and Smith (2003). The referred women autonomy and power aspects are women’s economic decision-making power, their family size decision-making power, their physical freedom of movement, community-level gender attitude measures, and their space in household decision-making. The conclusion of study shows that in the area studied, using of contraception is more likely to affect actual fertility than postponing age of marriage.