Religion and Fertility Behavior Among Ever-Married Women in Nigeria: Evidence from the Nigeria Demographic Health Survey 2018

Abstract

Using the 2018 Nigeria Demography and Health Survey (NDHS), this study was designed to examine the impact of religion on fertility behaviour. The theoretical basis of this study was Philip Jenkins’s Fertility and Faith hypothesis and the Religious Alloparenting hypothesis. The NDHS used a stratified sample that was chosen in two steps. First, a household listing operation was conducted in each of the chosen Enumeration Areas. Next, a fixed number of 30 households were chosen through equal probability systematic sampling in each cluster, yielding a total sample size of about 42,000 households. 42,121 women between the ages of 15 and 49 were found in the various houses, and individual interviews with 41,821 of them were later conducted. In this study, 8061 respondents were used in the analysis. Data gleaned from the NDHS was analyzed in this study, using descriptive statistics. The respondents’ religions were Catholic, other Christians, Islam and other religions. Catholic (9.4%), non-Catholic Christians (34.4%), Islam (55.5%), and other religions (0.7%). Islamic religion had low use of contraceptives i.e., 90.3% of no method, Catholics made more use of the traditional method of 12.5% than other religions. There was also a significant association between the use of contraceptives and religion. Muslim respondents got married below the age of 19 (77.3%), age 19 and 30 (22.1%) while Catholic got married below the age of 19 (34.2%), 19 and 30 (61.4%) Other Christians (36.7%) of its respondents below age 18, 19-30 (58.7%) and 31 and above (4.4%). Some of the recommendations made were to bring enlightenment to the public on the National Population Policy to guide or restrict the number of children by couples through religious leaders and also to make modern contraceptives acceptable by all religions.