Women Empowerment And Fertility Behaviour In Northern Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, and the seventh largest country in the world. The sub-division of Nigeria into geo-political zones placed the country into six geo-political zones. Northern Nigerian is a region which is quite different from Southern part of the country. The Northern region of Nigeria is divided into three different parts, which are th_e North Central, North East, and North-West. North Central region consists of Niger, Kogi, Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kwara, Abuja, North East states include Adamawa, Bauchi, Barno, Gombe, Yobe, Taraba, North West include Jigawa, Kano, Kastina, Kebbi, kaduna, Sokoto and Zamfara). Past researches on women empowerment and fertility behavior in Nigeria have shown that socioeconomic characteristics of women and their empowerment have been responsible for their fertility behaviour. women empowerment is defined as an encompassing women sense of self-worth, access to opportunities and resources, choices and the ability to exercise them, control over their own lives, and influence over the direction of social change(NPC, ICF International, 2013). While Fertility behavior can be said to be the state or ability of being fertile, the ability to produce .offspring. This study examined the relationship between women empowerment and fertility behaviour in northern Nigeria. This study adopts liberal feminist theory. Liberal feminist theory aims at improving all round gender equality and empowerment by encouraging women's access to public institutions and bringing women's issues to the fore of national discourse (Walter, 1998). The weighted sample size of22,999 women ofreproductive age (15-49 years). For the purpose of this study, secondary data was used. The secondary data Source was obtained from NDHS 2013 ( Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey) which constitute the data for this• study. The univariate analysis revealed that very few women have autonomy in northern Nigeria with 5.75%, while those women who have no autonomy had the highest percentage of94.25%. The result also revealed that 59% of women in northern Nigeria were employed, while 41% were un-ernployed. Furthermore, the table revealed that 24% of women had no children ever born, while 35% of women had 5 and above children ever born and 41 % of women had 1-4 children ever born. The bi-variate result revealed that there is a significant relationship between women autonomy and children ever born with (X2= 270.3671, pr =0.000), while women that had low autonomy had the highest percentage ofno children, while, women that had high autonomy had 44%. The result also revealed that women who are un-employed had the percentage of 39%, they had no children, while those women who were employed had the highest percentage of 42%, they had 1-4 children ever born. Employed women who have 5 and above children had 43%. There is a significant relationship between occupational status of women and children ever born (X2= 2000, pr =0.000). The multivariate analysis revealed there is a significant influence of women autonomy on fertility behavior in northern Nigeria with (P>lzl = 0.000, 95% Conf. Interval of 2.5 and 2.8), while there is a significant influence of women employment on fertility behavior in Northern Nigeria with (P>lzl = 0.000, 95% Conf. Interval of2.5 and 2.8). There is a significant influence oflslam religion, rural place of residence, secondary and higher educational level, age of respondents, north east region and north west region on fertility behavior in northern Nigeria, while there is no significant influence of primary education, traditional and other religion on fertility behavior. Key words: Women work status, women empowerment, fertility behavior, northern Nigeria.