Week Twelve: Africa

(Study Questions)

James Cobbe. 1982. Emigration and development in southern Africa, with special reference to Lesotho.

• Describe the pattern of labor migration from neighboring countries to South Africa before the 1970s, and what has happened to this migration since then.
• What are the newly emerging three groups in rural areas of Lesotho, and which group benefits most from migration?
• What are the short run benefits of outmigration in sending countries, and what are the long-term costs?

John C. Caldwell. 2000. Rethinking the African AIDS epidemic.

• Review as many as you can of the half-dozen main factors that Caldwell holds responsible for the massive AIDS epidemic in Africa, particularly eastern Africa.
• What are the main fears of African national leaders (also found throughout their populations) that have kept them from working to change these factors?
• What three specific policies does Caldwell suggest would be able, by themselves, to change rising HIV rates into falling rates of infection/prevalence?.

Daniel Jordan Smith. 2004. Contradictions in Nigeria's fertility transition: the burdens and benefits of having people.

• How do people moving to Nigeria's growing cities describe their reasons for limiting the number of their children?
• What is kin-based patronage, and what does it have to do with the fertility behavior of Nigerians today?
• How many children do city dwellers in Nigeria typically want? Explain how this results from balancing reasons for controlling fertility versus "having people."