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Peru - average time spent with young children down from 17 years to 14. |
Throughout much of the world, the lives of women are still largely circumscribed by motherhood. The average woman in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, has her first child at 19 and her last child when she is 38 or 39. About 25 years will therefore be spent with at least one child under the age of six years.
In Asia and Latin America, the average child-bearing period is usually shorter, but most women will still spend the first 10 or 15 years of their adult lives with primary responsibility for young children.
In almost all the countries surveyed by the DHS programme, the proportion of women's lives spent with young children has fallen since the World Fertility Surveys (WFS) of a decade earlier.
Looking after the young during their first few years - the years which see most of the growth of brain and body, of values and personality - is a demanding task made more demanding by poverty and lack of basic services. And for most women, it precludes the possibility of further education and training, or of working for change as opposed to working to maintain the status quo.
Women who look after young children have many other responsibilities, but few other opportunities.
The caring years
The number of years women aged 15-49 spend with at least one child under age six*
Years
between WFS DHS
surveys surveys surveys
-------------------------------------------------------
Sub-Saharan Africa
Ghana 8 21 21
Senegal 15 21 20
Kenya 15 23 19
Asia, the Middle East and North Africa
Sudan 11 18 16
Egypt 12 16 15
Morocco 12 17 15
Tunisia 10 17 14
Sri Lanka 12 13 11
Thailand 12 16 11
Latin America and the Caribbean
Ecuador 7 17 16
Mexico 10 22 15
Peru 14 17 14
Colombia 14 15 12
Dominican Rep. 16 16 12
Trinidad and Tobago 10 12 12
*Average number of years a woman between the ages of 15 and 49 would spend with at least one child under six if current age-specific proportions of women with a child under six were to remain constant.
Source: DHS Program, Women's lives and experiences, 1994.
Click here for a summary of DHS findings on progress for women in gaining control over child-bearing.