Women"s development projects and fertility change : suggestions for assessing field experience

This paper examines the rationale behind such socioeconomic strategies and offers recommendations with regard to their implementation and evaluation. The following are examples of efforts to change the conditions associated with high fertility: improving women"s health and ability to care for the health of their children so that high infant mortality rates will diminish; increasing the level of education among women in order to delay the age of marriage; opening up long-term employment opportunities so that women begin to balance out the rewards and recognition they receive for child-bearing with those for non-familial activity; and providing appropriate technology and other assistance to free women from domestic work and farm labor, permitting them to participate in educational and community activities. Other mechanisms recommended to facilitate fertility decline include vocational training for girls and women, establishing cooperatives and marketing channels for women, providing maternity protection and child care, raising the minimum age at marriage, making education cost-free and compulsory, and passing equal rights legislation. While there are indications that projects of this kind have a positive impact on the lives of the women participants, few such projects have been evaluated. The small size of the projects and the fact that they have been recently implemented makes evaluation difficult. However, because of their potential benefit, the author recommends the development of more flexible and innovative evaluation schemes so that project designers can clearly identify what does and what does not work in the field. Criteria and indicators for analyzing integrated projects are provided in chart form. A brief description of a field project in Kenya and a 28-item bibliography (1970-80) are appended.