Language and Fertility Transition in Uganda: Fertility of English-Speaking Couple in Multilingual Uganda

Seung Wan Kim, University of Maryland

25 years after from International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, total fertility rate (TFR) of Uganda is around 6 and has experienced slower pace of decline compare to neighbor countries. Therefore, I conducted second data analysis with 2,479 couples in USAID DHS data Uganda to understand high TFR with an idea of role of linguistics homogeneity. According to the analysis, when woman speaks either Luganda or English, the couple may have about 11 % less children withholding other control variables including level of education, wealth, religion, region and urban residence in constant. This paper would be meaningful for social scientist to consider language factor for understanding fertility transition in Uganda and Africa. Finally, more than just linguistical homogeneity within a society, its heterogeneous effect for female population might add value on female literacy and worry for expected stratified reproduction problem due to stratified education.