Fertility Differentials in the Sudan

Abstract

Statistically valid records of birth and death registration do not yet exist in the Sudan. The I955/56 sample census gave some evidence though not very conclusive' that there were fertility differentials in the country. These differentials were of three main types. First, there were differentials between the inhabitants of the three Southern provinces where recorded fertility levels were exceptionally indeed suspiciously high; and the Northern provinces where recorded fertility levels were considerably lower. Second, within the Northern populations, there appeared to be fertility differentials between the settled agricultural populations on the one hand, and the pastoral nomads on the other, fertility among the latter being apparently unusually low. Third, there was some evidence of urban-rural differentials. Of these three types of fertility differentials, the second is possibly the most important, since the avowed policy of the Sudan Government is directed towards the settlement of the nomadic part of the population. Indeed, even in the absence of an explicit policy of settlement, any extension of irrigation schemes and thus of the area of cultivable land2 will automatically result in the settlement of formerly nomadic or partially nomadic peoples. This settlement was dearly reflected in the data obtained from the 1955/56 census, which revealed substantial movements of formerly nomadic peoples into the expanding agricultural areas.3 If such settlement results in a pronounced rise in the birth rate, the demographic repercussions of this movement should not go unforeseen. The object of this study is therefore to examine this second category of fertility differentials. Do these differentials in fact exist, and if so, what are the causes ? The answer to these questions was the principal purpose of a demographic sample survey conducted in I96I /624. In this paper, however, attention will be confined to the first of these questions the establishment of the