Determinants of fertility preference among couples in Nigeria: implication for fertility control

Abstract

High and stalled levels of fertility are major concerns not only in sub-Saharan Africa but also in many other developing countries in the world. Studies abound on fertility of men and women and consequently, policies have been put in place to address fertility with no significant change. This has necessitated new approach to affect fertility behaviour. Therefore, the study examines couples’ characteristics and fertility preference in Nigeria. The analysis utilized the 2008 couples recode dataset. Data analyses were done using Kappa Statistics and multinomial logistic regression. The results showed that age, work status, wealth status, fertility desire, spousal communication/decision making and contraceptive use were characteristics of couples significantly predicting fertility behaviour (P<0.05) while work status, wealth status, contraceptive knowledge and use were significant characteristics predicting fertility behaviour of either of the couples (P<0.05). The analysis concluded that understanding characteristics of couples is important in fertility behaviour and control in Nigeria.