Thesiss

Marriage in West Africa is almost universal; polygyny, a form of union where a man is married to more than one wife, is widely practiced in Senegal and Mali. Age at first marriage is very early for girls and divorced or widowed women quickly remarry. The first chapter is a study…

An important question in the analysis of fertility is does the type of marital union matter? Is women's fertility affected by their marital union type? Does being in a monogamous or polygynous union have any effect on the number of children women will have? What is the nature of…

This dissertation utilizes a feminist theoretical model of women's autonomy to explain much of the variability in national fertility rates from 1990-2006. While many previous efforts have been made to determine what causes variation in fertility, this research utilizes panel ana…

The general purpose of this study was to explore the implications of the cultural institution of polygyny for child health in Nigeria. Data collected from the 1990 Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS, 1990) on children born five years preceding the survey were used to e…