Refining the Criteria for Stalled Fertility Declines: An Application to Rural KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa, 1990‐2005

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Abstract
Stalled fertility declines have been identified in several regions across the developing world, but the current conceptualization of a stalled fertility decline is poorly theorized and does not lend itself to objective measurement. We propose a more rigorous and statistically testable definition of stalled fertility decline that can be applied to time‐series data. We then illustrate the utility of our definition through its application to data from rural South Africa for the period 1990‐2005 collected from a demographic surveillance site. Application of the approach suggests that fertility decline has indeed stalled in rural KwaZulu‐Natal, at about three children per woman. The stall, some 20 percent above the replacement fertility level, does not appear to be associated with a rise in wanted fertility or attenuated access to contraceptive methods. This identification of a stalled fertility decline provides the first evidence of such a stall in southern Africa, the region with the lowest fertility levels in sub‐Saharan Africa.