Jennifer Johnson-Hanks' work focuses on the relationship between population rates and social processes, particularly those related to marriage and childbearing in West and Central Africa. She is interested in the quotidian practices of family making as they can be understood ethnographically, and in how these quotidian practices aggregate into demographic facts. Her first book looks at how educated Cameroonian women manage the social timing of their entry into motherhood, in negotiating sexual relationships, contraception and abortion, and child fosterage. She is currently developing a new field project on the role of sexual and reproductive intentions in shaping rates of childbearing in Burkina Faso.