African Transitions and Fertility Inequality: A Demographic Kuznets Hypothesis.

How does fertility inequality evolve as a country's birth rate declines? Past scholarship has opposed vertical transitions (led by high-SES groups) to horizontal declines unfolding evenly across all groups. We reconcile these scenarios in a 'demographic Kuznets' thesis built on two tenets: (1) fertility inequality follows a bell curve and (2) this rise and fall is driven, successively, by processes of differentiation in group-specific fertility rates, compositional change, and shared declines in fertility. Empirical tests for African transitions confirm the front-end of the thesis. Both the cross-national and historical evidence show that during the early stages of African transitions, fertility inequality has risen, largely because of the innovative behaviour of educated women. The findings draw attention to current demographic and economic divergence in a region where inequality has often received little attention. More broadly, they advance the debates over Africa's exceptionalism, and the future course and consequences of its transitions.