Analysis of the impact of reproductive health outcome on women labour force participation and earnings in Nigeria

Abstract

This study undertakes an empirical economic analysis of women reproductive health and labour force participation in Nigeria.  Specifically, the study analyzed the impact of reproductive health outcome on women labour force participation and earnings in  Nigeria. The study used mixed research methodology to study the research problem across the entire country. First, it uses a national representative quantitative data from the National Demographic Health Survey reports for 2003, 2008 and 2013 respectively. Secondly, cross-sectional micro- data were also collected from two study areas comprising one urban and one rural to test the validity of the hypothesis raised in this study. A questionnaire design, focus group discussions and key-informants interview were used to elicit information from respondents. The study used multi-stage sampling technique to select 400 women of reproductive age in the study areas. Various analytical tools such as chi-square, crosstabulations, and logistic regression were used to analyze the data collected. The study found that women’s reproductive health outcomes such as total fertility rate, child spacing and contraceptive prevalence rate have negatively impacted women’s labour force participation and earnings in the study areas. Hence, the negative reproductive health outcome has not given women the ample opportunity to develop the necessary capacities to engage in labour force  participation. From the cross sectional survey, it was found that only 6.54% of the respondents practice family planning which is below the national benchmark of 64.34%. About 92.92% of the respondents had birth interval of less than two years which is against the government’s policy of two years child spacing. About 95.58% of the respondents married at less than 18 years which is against the  government policy of 18 years age of marriage for women. Meanwhile, about 85% of the respondents have between 7 to 10 children and above per woman which is against the government’s policy of 4 children per woman. In addition, only 25.47% of the respondents have formal education while 30.86% are in active formal employment which is 100% against government’s policy of women literacy and formal employment rates in Nigeria. Therefore, the study concludes that reproductive health outcome does not have significant impact on women labour force participation and earnings in Nigeria. To this end, this study recommends that, there is need for government, key stakeholders in the private sector and non-governmental organizations to organize sensitization workshops for all religious leaders and household heads on the economic and health benefits of family planning and child spacing, in order to regulate the reproductive health behaviour’s of women so as to ensure their labour force participation in order to increase their lifetime earnings.

Keywords: reproductive health outcome, women labour force participation and earnings, logistic regression model