Document Type
Article
Abstract
A 1972 survey of fertility among 116 Seminole Indian women aged 15 years and over living in rural and urban areas of Florida suggests that urban residence was clearly associated with lower fertility levels and the desire for smaller numbers of children. Larger numbers of children were desired and produced by rural reservation women than by their urban counterparts. Respondents were closely similar in average age (about 31) but differed strikingly in socioeconomic variables such as education and income while remaining similar in cultural variables such as language, powwow attendance, Green Corn Dance attendance, and degree of traditional dress. Approval of and use of birth control were much lower on the rural reservations. In this situation, the urban pressures toward lower family size so often reported in the literature appear to be at work: a statement not uniformly true among urbanizing American Indians, as shown in a previous study by the authors.
Recommended Citation
Liberty, Margot; Scaglion, Richard; and Hughey, David V.
(1976)
"Rural and Urban Seminole Indian Fertility,"
Human Biology:
Vol. 48:
Iss.
4, Article 7.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol/vol48/iss4/7
