Paper short abstract:

The paper provides an account of recent fertility trends in Eritrea, focusing on changes after independence (1991) and the factors underlying them. In this study, a more comprehensive analysis is made using both quantitative and qualitative data collected through literature review and fieldwork.

Paper long abstract:

The study of the fertility transition in Eritrea allows to question the availability and quality of demographic sources in Sub-Saharan Africa, and mainly in the Horn of Africa, where population dynamics are rather different. Moreover, it opens the discussion on the necessity and difficulty in carrying out fieldwork to fill knowledge gaps and collect original data otherwise unavailable on sensitive issues in peculiar geographical and political environments.

The paper focuses on the analysis of the fertility trend in post-independent Eritrea (1991-2018). It relies on available quantitative data, mainly the Demographic and Health Surveys (1995, 2002, 2010) and the Ministry of Health reports, together with a critical glimpse on the United Nations Population Revision 2017 and the Millennium Development Goals country reports. Since in the last decades different factors affected the direct and indirect determinants of fertility, data contextualization is fundamental to avoid oversimplifications and misinterpretations. Therefore, my effort consists of providing an emic interpretation based on in depth interviews about the Eritrean fertility transition. In detail, after a capsule presentation of the limits concerning sources and methods, I highlight the role played by the traditional practices (such as gender roles, female genital mutilations, and concubinage), the biopolitics implemented by the government, and the migratory culture, affect both population structure and dynamics.