Fertility patterns in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remain one of the most compelling demographic puzzles of the 20th and 21st centuries. While extensive research has explored fertility variation across the region, the role of marital dissolution and repartnering has received limited attention until recently. Yet, these are fundamental features of nuptiality regimes in SSA. Emerging research reveals a clear fertility gradient by marital history: women in intact first unions exhibit the highest fertility, followed by those who are remarried, while women in dissolved unions show the lowest fertility levels. These patterns are consistent across nearly all sub-Saharan African countries and are most pronounced in high-fertility contexts.

The dominant explanation for this gradient is variation in exposure time. However, focusing solely on outcomes risks inferring desires from actions. This presentation shifts the focus to fertility desires, recognising that observed variation in fertility by marital history must either be due to (i) differences in desired family size or (ii) differences in the realisation of those desires. Distinguishing between these two mechanisms is critical to understanding the meaning of fertility variation by marital history and how it shapes women's ability to achieve their reproductive goals.

The findings draw on nationally representative data from 187,603 women across 34 sub-Saharan African countries. They reveal how marital dissolution and remarriage influence women’s ability to realise their fertility desires—and how these dynamics vary across countries.

Ben Malinga John is a Malawian demographer and lecturer at the University of Malawi. He earned his PhD in Demography in 2024 from Stockholm University and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. His research focuses on how family dynamics—particularly union formation, dissolution, and repartnering—shape fertility patterns in sub-Saharan Africa. His doctoral work introduced the Indirect Life Table of Union Dissolution (ILTUD), a novel method for estimating union trajectories using cross-sectional data. Ben’s work has received international recognition, including the 2022 Jan M. Hoem Paper Award, and has been published in leading journals such as Demography, Population and Development Review, and Population Studies.

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