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Family size preference among women in Nigeria

Similarly, individual and couples’ ideal family size (IFS) in Nigeria show no consistent pattern of decline and exceeds
TFR consistently. Ideal number of children for all currently married women aged 15–49 years was 6.2 in 1990, 7.3 in 2003,
6.7 in 2008, 7.1 in 2013, and 6.6 in 2018 (National Population Commission (NPC) [Nigeria] and ICF, 2019; NPC and
ICF International, 2014; and NPC, and ICF Macro, 2009). In contrast to the Nigerian situation, some sub-Saharan African
countries, such as Ghana and Rwanda, have made better albeit slow progress in fertility decline. In Ghana, the mean
ideal number of children among currently married women declined from 5.5 in 1988 to 4.7 in 2014, and TFR declined by
34.4% from 6.4 in 1988 to 4.2 in 2014, and 3.8 in 2019, 40.6% in slightly over three decades (ICF International, 2021). In
Rwanda, IFS declined from 4.4 in 1992 to 3.7 in 2019, and TFR declined from 6.2 in 1992 to 4.1 in 2019, a 33.9% decline
in nearly three decades, whereas Nigeria’s TFR only declined by 11.7% within the same period (ICF International, 2021).
The high IFS and TFR in Nigeria are indicative of a persistent pronatalist norm and highlight a demographic future that
is of concern, given the slow pace of socioeconomic development in the country.
Nigeria’s population is estimated at 216 million on January 1, 2022, and the country will be the fourth most populous
in the world in 2050, next to India, China, and the United States (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social
Affairs, Population Division, 2022). Although the country’s gross domestic product (US$432.3 billion) is the largest
in Africa (The World Bank, 2021), 82.9 million of her population are considered poor by national standards (National
Bureau of Statistics (NBS), 2020) Among other factors, the high level of poverty is partly attributed to large and
growing population, due to persistent high fertility (Adebowale, Fagbamigbe, Akinyemi, et al., 2020; Bongaarts, 2001;
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2022).
Past studies attributed the slow and stalled trend in fertility in Nigeria to diverse factors, such as cultural and religious
beliefs, high values about marriage and children, early marriage, low contraceptive prevalence rate, and high fertility
desires (Alaba, Olubusoye, and Olaomi, 2017; Caldwell, Orubuloye, and Caldwell, 1992; Feyisetan and Bankole, 2009;
Isiugo-Abanihe, 1994; Izugbara and Ezeh, 2010; Olaseinde, Owagbemi, Aruna, et al., 2022; Smith, 2005). However,
there have been limited scholarly attempts to identify the drivers of women’s IFS desire. IFS is indicative of actual
fertility behavior. Studies conducted in sub-Saharan African countries indicate that women’s reproductive preferences
and decisions are constrained by culture (Dodoo, Horne, and Biney, 2014) and that men prefer more children than women
(Bankole and Audam, 2011; Isiugo-Abanihe, 1994). However, women’s fertility preferences in many situations are more
predictive of actual fertility than men’s desired family size.
In a recent systematic review of longitudinal studies in 28 low- and middle-income countries in Asia and Africa, women’s
desire to stop childbearing was a strong predictor of subsequent fertility compared to the modest influence of the man’s
desire (Cleland, Machiyama, and Casterline, 2020). Women are likely to use contraceptives when there is a disagreement
between their desired number of children and their partners’. Evidence from Bankole and Audam’s (2011) study showed
that in seven of nine sub-Saharan African countries higher fertility preference by wives was inversely associated with the
use of contraceptives, relative to husbands’ higher preference. In Bangladesh, the risk of having another pregnancy for
women who wanted additional children when their husbands did not want them was 2.20 times higher than when it was
the husband alone who wanted a child, compared to the group where neither couple wanted another child (Gipson and
Hindin, 2009). In an Australian study, Fan and Maitra (2011) found that wife’s fertility preference was more predictive
of subsequent births than the husband’s. A similar finding in Nigeria showed that where wives desired more children than
husbands, fertility preference implementation is higher (Ibisomi, 2011). These findings underscore the crucial importance
of women’s family size preferences in predicting actual fertility. Scholars have argued that although family size desire is
not always achieved, it is predictive of actual fertility (Bongaarts, 2001; Kodzi, Jonsone, and Casterline, 2010). In a study
by Mberu and Reed (2014) in Nigeria, the ideal number of children was positively associated with fertility behaviour.
Declining reproductive preferences indicate changing values about childbearing and fertility transition (Bongaarts, 2001;
Feyisetan and Bankole, 2009; Mberu and Reed, 2014). Therefore, family size preference is vital for projections of fertility
behaviour, planning, implementation and assessment of family planning programmes, and for population policies. As
Nigeria renews her commitment to pursue a 0.6 reduction every 5 years until 2030 with a target TRF of 4.7 by 2025, it is
important to provide some information on the population groups to target.
There have been studies on fertility preferences in Nigeria, but most of them had a focus on couple’s fertility preferences
or desire for more children (Odusina, Ayotunde, Kunnuji, et al., 2020; Oyediran, 2006; Oyediran and Isiugo-Abanihe,
2002), men’s fertility preferences (Isiugo-Abanihe, 1994), the influence of fertility preference on achieved fertility,
fertility preference implementation, (Bankole, 1995; Ibisomi, 2011), IFS without segregating by sex (Amusa and Yahya,
2019), and IFS among all women who currently had children aged 0–60 months (Akeju, Owoeye, Ayeni, et al., 2021). The
studies that also examined women’s fertility preferences, such as Bankole (1995) and Umoh, Abah and Ekanem (2012)
were either focused on couple’s preferences or situated within a state in Nigeria. Furthermore, many of these studies

52 International Journal of Population Studies | 2021, Volume 7, Issue 1