In the early 1990s, Caldwell and others suggested a hypothesis that an African fertility decline would be characterised by declines in fertility at all ages and parities simultaneously, unlike that observed elsewhere in the developing world. Earlier research has documented the development of exceedingly long median birth intervals in South Africa, and suggested that the combination of political, economic and institutional factors associated with Africans? lives under apartheid were responsible for that pattern. This study expands that earlier research across both space and time. Particular emphasis is placed on the measurement and analysis of patterns of childbearing in eight countries using DHS data. Three distinct regional patterns of childbearing are identified, all of which are fundamentally different from those observed in an arbitrarily-chosen South East Asian country. This provides strong empirical support for the Caldwell hypothesis, and suggests that – indeed – sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing a new variant of the fertility transition.