Influence Of Men’s Participation In Childcare Tasks On Their Childbearing Intentions In Ibadan North Local Government Area, Oyo State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Nigeria has an annual population growth rate of 2.6 and a relatively high Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of

5.6 due to its larger family size. Men‟s fertility desire is a strong determinant of family sizes, but it is

women that perform greater share of childcare activities. The potential relationship between the desire

for childbearing and the responsibility of early childcare between spouses has not been adequately

explored. This study was therefore designed to determine the extent to which the division of childcare

tasks between spouses influences men‟s childbearing intentions in Ibadan North Local Government Area

(LGA), Oyo state Nigeria.

A four-stage sampling technique was used to select 179 couples living together with their two children

and whose index child was less than two years old. Data was collected from 20 communities in the LGA

using a semi-structured questionnaire, which measured participation in identified childcare tasks

(feeding, bathing, changing diaper-toileting, putting to bed, getting up to attend to child at night, taking

child to health providers, disciplining child, paying bills), with the index child and desired family size.

Men‟s involvement in childcare tasks was measured on a 30-point scale. Task performance was

classified as “high” >20, “average” 11-20, and “Poor” 0-10. Six Focus Group Discussions (three male

and three female groups) were conducted to complement the quantitative data. Descriptive statistics, and

logistic regression were used to analyse the quantitative data while the FGD data were analysed using

the thematic approach.

The mean ages of men and their wives were 33.5±1.5 and 28.6±5.0 years respectively. Majority of

couples were married (85.7%), 94.1% were Yoruba and overall 44.2% had secondary education. Men‟s

mean monthly income was N24828.00±20485.00 compared with their wives N16920.00±11797.00.

Men‟s mean desired family size was higher (4.7±1.6) than that of their wives (4.1±1.3) as 69.5% of the

men desired more than four children compared to 53.0% of the wives who had such desire. Overall,

33.0%, 46.9% and 20.1% of the women expected their husbands to perform few, some and most

identified childcare tasks respectively. However, 44.7%, 36.0% and 19.3% of male respondents

performed few, some and most identified childcare tasks with the index child respectively as validated

by their wives. Men‟s participation in childcare task, high spousal monthly income and increased

spousal educational status were significantly associated with men‟s desire for small family size

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