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The effect of women's education, economic roles, and values on fertility in Nigeria
Abstract
Two themes emerge in the literature on the determinants of fertility in most Third World countries: the role of social and economic transformation and the role of ideational changes. These factors are thought to foster the independence of nuclear family and increase women's ability to manipulate reproduction. These, in turn, affect the roles that women play by changing their status. The principal assumption of this study is that women's roles are determined to a large extent by a society's educational and economic institutions, which affect the status of women and their fertility behavior. A model investigating the effect of women's education, economic participation (both before and immediately after marriage), and acquisition of non-traditional values on family formation in Nigeria was used. Data were collected in the summer of 1987 from a sample of married women of childbearing age in Nigeria. It was hypothesized that education affects age at marriage, first birth interval and total fertility through the intervening variables, pre- and postmarital employment and acquisition of non-traditional values. Contrary to expectation, education has a direct but no indirect effect on age at marriage. Also, education has a direct and indirect effect (through postmarital work and first birth interval) on total fertility. The study shows that education is the crucial factor in explaining fertility differentials for respondents of all ages. Education has a direct and indirect effect on the fertility of all women, while for older women (over 40 years) education affects their fertility only through age at marriage. In general, better-educated women work before marriage, marry when they are older, work immediately after marriage, and have fewer children.
Subject Area
Social structure|Womens studies|Demographics
Recommended Citation
Uhiara, Adeze Nwashili, "The effect of women's education, economic roles, and values on fertility in Nigeria" (1989). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9013631.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9013631