Subsistence crop deficit and family structure in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Abstract

The author seeks to provide demographic explanations for the current food crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa. "In the present paper we will consider the possibility that one of these [explanations] may lie in the way African families are structured particularly in countries that are still in the first stage of the demographic transition. More specifically we will examine the following two assumptions: the effects which the rural-urban migration...has on food production may be amplified by the way family labour is divided between the sexes and the different age groups; [and] lower mortality increases the size of the kin group while rural-urban migration decreases the proportion of family members engaged in agricultural production thus perturbing the distribution and consumption of subsistence foods." (EXCERPT)