Combining demography, history, and sociology, this book offers a new methodology for the study of African fertility and a new definition of the role of household demography in agrarian economies. It provides a useful perspective on the ways in which human reproduction both reflects upon and reacts with the reproduction trends of society and economy in coastal Tanzania. Part I asserts a political economy of changing fertility; Part II studies the implications of demographic patterns for people's work-loads and economic fortunes at the individual and household levels.