Fertility stalls are to a large extent wanted stalls. An analysis in countries with strong evidence of fertility stalls

Fertility decline in sub-Saharan Africa began in the early 1980s; however, fertility remains at rates well above replacement levels. Even more, since the early 2000s slowdowns, halts and reversals in fertility decline have been observed in many countries. Our goal is to analyze the extent to which wanted and unwanted fertility have contributed to fertility stalls, specifically in countries with strong evidence of stalled fertility, i.e., Cameroon, Congo, Kenya, Namibia, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. We use the Demographic and Health Surveys to estimate fertility rates by fertility planning status. Then, we propose four scenarios in which we estimate what the fertility levels would be if no mistimed and unwanted births have occurred. In the first two scenarios we revisit the usual measure of Wanted TFR and propose a new measure that shifts mistimed births to the time in which the mother would have wanted to have the birth. In the last two scenarios, we use contraceptive failure to account for rationalization. Our findings suggest that fertility stalls are mainly driven by wanted fertility. Unwanted fertility account for the stalled period only in Kenya. Our findings suggest that preventing mistimed or unwanted births would lead to lower fertility rates, although fertility stalls would have remained. Accounting for rationalization from contraceptive failure results in lower estimates of wanted fertility compared to the usual measure of wanted fertility.