Climate variability and fertility preferences in Zimbabwe: Examining the impact of environmental stress on the ideal number of children

Résumé

Climate change variability is increasingly emerging as an important determinant of demographic behavior, particularly in Agrarian societies where livelihoods remain highly dependent on environmental stability. While fertility transition scholarship has traditionally emphasized socio-economic factors such as education, urbanization, and marital change, limited empirical attention has been given to how climate stress shapes fertility preferences in Sub-Saharan Africa. Guided by Risk Society Theory and Life Course Theory, this study examines the relationship between climate variability and the ideal number of children in Zimbabwe, conceptualizing fertility preferences as socially embedded and environmentally mediated decisions shaped by both structural transitions and ecological uncertainty. The study uses nationally representative georeferenced data from the 2015 Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey linked with high resolution datasets from WorldClim and NASA Earth observation sources. A quantitative  cross-sectional design was employed, and Poisson regression was used to model the count nature of the dependent variable. The analytical sample consisted of 9910 respondents. The Findings show that Mean temperature is positively and significantly associated with ideal family size (β=0.019, p<0.001), suggesting that rising temperature may reinforce pronatalist preferences in climate vulnerable contexts. Annual precipitation showed a weak positive association (β=0.002, p<0.093), while other climatic indicators were not statistically significant. Among socio-demographic factors, higher educational attainment significantly reduced fertility preferences, with tertiary education showing strongest negative effect (β=-0.435, p<0.001). Urban residence was associated with lower ideal family size(β=-0.0122, p<0.001), while marital union, age and household composition significantly increased fertility preferences. The findings suggest that fertility preferences in Zimbabwe are shaped not only by socio-economic transitions but also environmental uncertainty. The study contributes to climate demography by demonstrating that climate change climate change is becoming increasingly embedded in reproductive decision making and highlights the need to integrate reproductive health into climate adaptation policies.