Negotiating through reproductive change: Gendered social interaction and fertility regulation in Mozambique

This paper addresses the role of informal social interaction in reproductive changes. Using data from individual and focus groups interviews conducted with men and women in suburban areas of Greater Maputo, Mozambique, it shows how people gain fertility-related and family planning-related information and form their corresponding attitudes and preferences through verbal and non-verbal exchanges with others. This social interaction on reproductive matters is gendered: men and women's interaction circuits rarely overlap, focus on different aspects of fertility and family-planning and construe them in distinctly gendered ways. Informal social interaction, therefore, affects marital partners' reproductive choices not only by complementing fertility-related information disseminated through formal channels but also through accentuating and negotiating gender differences in reproductive goals and expectations.