Structure and Behavior in the Social Demography of Africa

The aim was to identify alternative ways for social demographers to use ethnographic material and to overcome some of the deficits of structural-functional anthropology. Macro-social modeling is useful and micro-social approaches should be viewed as complementary and a fusion of structural and observed action-based analysis. Macro-level analysis provides easily quantifiable tests; micro-level analysis includes many methodological problems but allows for more complex explanations of behavior and of the relationship between social norms and behavior. Demographic processes can be part of both wider social relations and structures with universal quality and of context-specific partial explanations and deviance from the general pattern. The illustration of two coastal West African settings and their differences in postpartum abstinence behavior highlights the links between norms and actions. The Ikiti and the Ikale have different justifications for and social meaning attached to sexual abstinence. A social structural approach views norms as influencing actions. Micro approaches are needed because structural approaches leave many unanswered questions about the relationship between social structure and behavior and structural models determine the scope and direction of research interest. African demography has focused on large-scale relationships; changes or regional differences in demographic behavior have been explained in terms of structural theories. The processes of change have been ignored. Ethnographic information can be used effectively to question what macro-theories take for granted. Micro approaches are limited by the problems of interpretation and generalizing of explanations and then how best to formulate testable and generalizable hypotheses. The examples given show how conflicting norms are handled by using other strategies; factors other than norms determine abstinence. The micro analysis explains process successfully but is weak in explaining the origins of behavior.

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