FAMILY-STRUCTURE AND CHANGE IN RURAL BANGLADESH

This analysis uses data from an intensive village study to investigate whether rising landlessness leads to increasing fragmentation and nuc leation of families in rural Bangladesh. It was found that, even after rapid fertility decline, the elderly and women continue to rely exten sively on family support. Although landlessness puts stress on interge nerational relations, a favourably low dependency ratio (elders to son s), brought about by the child-mortality decline of the 1950s and 1960 s, has allowed the burden to be spread over larger numbers of sons tha n were previously available. A persistence of traditional living arran gements, in which sons form their own households in the homesteads of their fathers, also contributes to retarding the process of family dis integration that is likely to be caused when farm size decreases and t he role of the farm economy in a traditional peasant society diminishe s.