“Children are the Wealth Of The Poor:” High Fertility and the Organization of Labor in the Rural Economy of Jean Rabel, Haiti
This dissertation explores the logic underlying what can be called a ‘pronatal socio-cultural fertility complex’ in rural Haiti. At 5.9 births per mother the rural Haitian Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is the highest in the Western hemisphere and has not changed significantly in 30 years (see Table 1-1 below). Despite a foreign-sponsored national family planning program begun in 1971, only 9.5% of rural reproductive-age Haitian women currently use contraceptives (ibid).