Women’s educational attainment, empowerment and contraceptive use in six regions of Nigeria
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Date
2017
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
IUSSP.
Abstract
Educational attainment and women empowerment play critical roles in contraceptive use and fertility outcomes. Nigeria has experienced progress in women’s educational development but this has not improved prevalence of contraceptive use. This paper examines the linkages between education, empowerment and contraceptive use from the fifth wave Demographic and Health survey (DHS). The study uses path-analysis to examine the pathway from educational attainment, empowerment on contraceptive use among sexually active women aged 15-49 in the six regions. Control variables are religion, household wealth, employment place of residence and number of living children. Our results show that education has positive effects on contraceptive use in all the six regions after controlling for other variables. Furthermore, there is a positive gradient between education and empowerment in all the regions except South East region. Empowerment was important in determining contraceptive use, but weak in North Central and South West regions. Increase in contraceptive prevalence (CPR) in general requires investing in education for all women and enhances empowerment by regional specific strategies.
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Keywords
women empowerment, fertility outcomes, Nigeria, Educational attainment
Citation
Osuafor, G., Ayiga, N., & Maputle, S. (2017, November). Women’s educational attainment, empowerment and contraceptive use in six regions of Nigeria. In 2017 International Population Conference. IUSSP.