Demographic and fertility transition in Nigeria; the progress made so far: a literature review

Abstract

Background: Nigeria, since its inception as a sovereign nation, has been plagued by population explosion. This may be due to factors that need to be addressed by the government and individuals alike such as fertility desires.

Main body: In the course of this review, we drew our resource information from the Nigerian Demographic and Health survey of 2018, PubMed, and African Journals Online (AJOL, Scholarly publications on sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria in particular that dwell on the area under review.

The total fertility rate (TFR) meaning the number of children a woman would bear in her lifetime is high, at a rate of 5.3 Children per woman. Population explosion is also a consequence of the low contraceptive use in Nigeria which stands at a rate of 17 % amongst married couples. Other factors that could be responsible for this population explosion include a lack of good population policies and few or non-existent national family planning programs.  These negative effects on the Nigerian population made it grow at an annual rate of 2 %.  Fifty percent (50%) of the Nigerian age distribution is under 19 years. This means that the Nigerian demography may not transit (change) readily.

Conclusion: A community or country is said to undergo demographic transition when the death rate and fertility rate balance each other, and the age distribution is made of working-class people against the young and the aged who are dependent on others for a living. The economy of such a country is industrialized, with good health systems and a long life span for its citizens. Fertility transition on the other hand means a situation where a community or national fertility rate shows a substantial decline compared to industrialized countries of Europe, The USA, and Latin America in the contemporary world.