children – praag.org

Family size: why some Nigerian men want more children

Fertility levels remain relatively high in Nigeria. The rate is slightly over five children per woman. This is one of the highest fertility rates in the world. With almost seven children per woman, Niger has the highest rate in the world, followed by Mali.

Many studies have suggested targeting men in family planning programmes to reduce fertility levels, particularly in patriarchal societies. This is because men wield excessive power that determines contraception use or non-use.

In Nigeria, which is a patriarchal society, the influence of men on fertility behaviour is seen in many ways. For instance, men usually make decisions about the number of children a woman will have.

We conducted research exploring the contextual factors that influence the attitudes of men towards fertility. These include sociocultural norms, beliefs, preferences and perceptions. Our study involved a range of different ethnic groups in Nigeria.

We collected qualitative data on men’s perceptions about the number of children people were expected to have in their community and the reasons for this.

We also sought to establish who usually wanted to have a high number of children in the family and who determined the number of children among couples.

Nigeria’s population growth is not sustainable. Population growth places increasing pressures on resources – such as water, forests and land – contributing to climate change and challenging environmental sustainability.

Among the 10 largest countries worldwide, Nigeria is growing the most rapidly. Nigeria’s population, currently the world’s seventh largest, is projected to surpass that of the United States and become the third largest country in the world shortly before 2050. Nigeria struggles with its population growth.

Our findings showed some of the beliefs and perceptions influencing male fertility in Nigeria. These include religion, polygamy, socioeconomic status, government policy, peer pressure, culture and sex preference. They also vary across ethnic groups.

Thus, there is a need to take into consideration the unique community structures in subsequent population-oriented social policy reviews and implementation to tackle high fertility behaviour in Nigeria.

Beliefs and perceptions

We used qualitative data that involved focus group discussions (12 in all) and in-depth interviews (18 in all) from Osun, Enugu and Zamfara. We interviewed men from the country’s three major ethnic groups – Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.

Across the three states the men involved in the discussions showed that they were knowledgeable about fertility. There were hardly any variations across the major ethnic groups. All placed a high value on large family size – more than four children per woman.

We asked the men how many children they wanted to have. Some wanted to have three or four, while some said such the decision was based on God or Allah’s wish for them.

For the most part, the reasons given for wanting a large number of children were to populate the earth, help with farm work, and to provide old-age support, honour and prestige.

A number of beliefs and perceptions that affected decisions around fertility were mentioned.

Religion was one. Religion plays a prominent role in how many children families have Nigeria. About 50% of Nigerians identify themselves as Muslims, while 48.1% identify as Christians. Islam promotes large families and encourages early marriage and a polygamous family system. Christianity prohibits the most effective forms of contraception and does not support abortion.

Polygamy: This is more prevalent in the northern region, where more than a third of married women reported having one or more co-wives. Through polygamy, the man will have multiple children from many wives.

Socioeconomic status: The economic situation of men was a determining factor in fertility behaviour. An example of this was that if the proportion of men with a nonprofessional occupation (like farming) in the community was high, there was a higher likelihood that the men wanted larger families. If the proportion of men who had at least secondary education in the community was low, they were more likely to have larger families. Peer pressure was another factor.

Government policy: Some mentioned that this encouraged families to have at most four children. Nigeria launched a policy of four children per woman in 1988 to stem population growth.

Culture: Culture plays a prominent role. Most cultures in Nigeria encourage many children. No culture supports having only a few. Sex preference, to a large extent, also influences the number of children. A higher premium is placed on male children. This encourages families to have more children until they have boys.

The respondents also articulated the effects of having a large family. These included being unable to adequately cater for the children. This could lead to children being socially disruptive, malnutrition, as well as high maternal and under-five mortality rates. Others mentioned strain on social and health infrastructure, discrimination against girls’ education, youth delinquency such as teenage pregnancy and sexual vices.

Some of the respondents gave reasons for a small family. The main ones included being able to give children quality education and to avoid poverty.

Next steps

To control population growth the government needs to design more interventions to improve education, employment opportunities and the economy.

For example, our study shows that the more the men were educated, the fewer the children they wanted to have.

There is also a need for steps to improve the socioeconomic status of men. The government needs to create more job opportunities. Research has shown that areas of high unemployment rates and low socioeconomic status family sizes are larger.

In addition, the government must run campaigns and programmes explaining the social and economic consequences of high rates of fertility.

Finally, the government must take steps to break down the country’s patriarchal family system so that women are given some autonomy. This can be driven by strengthening and promoting social policies that benefit girls and women such as access to education, employment opportunities and political positions.

—Ololade Grace Adewole, Obafemi Awolowo University; Kehinde Oluwaseun Omotoso, University of South Africa, and Sola S. Asa, Obafemi Awolowo University

Ololade Grace Adewole, Assistant Chief Planning Officer, National Centre for Technology Management, Obafemi Awolowo University; Kehinde Oluwaseun Omotoso, DST/NRF SARCHl Chair in Social Policy, University of South Africa, and Sola S. Asa, Associate Professor of Demography and Social Statistics, Obafemi Awolowo University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Putins awards parents with seven or more kids

This is a wonderful event promoting family values. You don’t get to have dinner with the President every day, but these families deserved it!

The Order of Parental Glory is awarded to parents (including adoptive parents), who have raised seven or more children and pay great care to the next generation’s health, education, and physical, spiritual and moral development.

The decoration was instituted by a presidential executive order in May 2008, and was first awarded on January 13, 2009.

Two Eastern Cape children found dead in car

Two children were found dead in a car in Zwide, Port Elizabeth, on Tuesday morning, Eastern Cape police said.

The two boys, aged three and four, were discovered in Scheepers Street just after 1am, said Warrant Officer Thembi Gwe.

They were found after a search by residents and police.

Gwe said one of the boys’ grandmother visited a house in the area with them on Monday.

“They wanted to play with vehicles that were parked outside. She ordered them to go back home,” said Gwe.

When she arrived home a few hours later the boys were not there.

A search was initiated and the boys were found in a vehicle parked in a yard in the street near the house they went to visit.

“The vehicle has been standing there for two months as it had mechanical problems. It is not clear how the children got into the vehicle.”

It was not known how the children died. Police were waiting for post-mortem results, she said. – Sapa

Love is a dying tradition: work is eliminating families

by Charlene Smith

Don’t cry if you’re no-one’s Valentine, love is a dying tradition as marriages and family life disappear according to a rush of new studies released this month.

The Brookings Institute in the United States reported on February 3 that, “Fewer Americans are married today than at any point in at least 50 years.” This correlates with data in the same report that says while half of women didn’t work 40 years ago, it is rare for women not to work now and they’re waiting longer to have children, if at all. Today in the United States a third of first time mothers are older than forty and around 10 percent of men and women are choosing not to marry at all.

Vicky Eriksson of human resources training group The People Element said, “ours are the most job-focused generations ever. We work longer hours -up to 500 hours more a year according to stats – and because we have become so consumed with accumulating degrees, status, and wealth, the other significant need for successful humans – good relationships – falls by the wayside. Yet, stats of the wealthiest one percent of Americans who earn 40 percent of that country’s wealth reveal that 48 percent are in stable, happy, long-term marriages. The very wealthiest have learned the secrets of successful relationships, the rest of us have not.” Figures for South Africa show rampant divorce, multiple marriages and a very high ratio of struggling single mothers.

The Organisation of Economic CoOperation and Development also released a report early in February saying that marriage in Western nations (including South Africa) is a dying trend. “Since the 1960s the family has undergone significant transformation. In many countries, the extended family has all but disappeared, and the traditional two-parent family has become much less widespread as divorce rates, re-marriages, cohabitation, single parenthood and same-sex partnerships have all increased.

“Families have seen more mothers take up work in the labour market, their adolescents spend longer and longer in education and training, and the elderly members of the family live longer and, increasingly, alone.”

Vicky Eriksson and Karin Wellman of The People Element said they were increasingly engaging with people in workshops who had chosen to give up relationships to devote time to their career. Eriksson said, “women especially tend to choose to focus on their career in their early years and then consider a relationship in their late thirties or early forties when they are at the top of their careers. But a relationship requires compromise and some struggle to do that after achieving success in the workplace. This can lead to personal stress and sadness later on.”

Wellman and Eriksson said they were so concerned by the high levels of stress in the workplace that they were organizing a conference on People Effectiveness @ Work to be held at the Midrand Conference Centre on the 8th of May 2012 “It will be a one day bootcamp to look at ways to help individuals and workforces to transform and cope with stress in ways that don’t disable their work performance or their family or personal life.”

Wellman pointed out that OECD figures on the breakup of relationships -especially families – were now imposing significant costs on economies, “In Britain that figure is now £42bn per year and rising, according to the Relationships Foundation. Family breakdown costs more than the entire defence budget in that country. In Britain and here most of the cost to the economy comes from benefits and tax credits that support single parents and their children. Today in Britain there are two million single parent families: there were one million in 1980. In South Africa most children are now being raised in single parent families.”

Recent demographic projections performed by OECD countries suggest that the next 20 years are likely to see a continuation and even acceleration of changes in household and family structures. In particular, the numbers and shares of single-adult and single-parent households are expected to increase significantly, as is the number of couples without children.

In Britain today, 40 percent of all children can expect to see their parents split up before their 16th birthday. At least half of family breakdown takes place within the first three years of childhood. (However, the latest study from the Centre for Social Justice and the Bristol Community Family Trust estimates that, of children born today, no less than 48% will see their parents split by their 16th birthday.)

OECD research has shown that, of all countries (not just the 30 member countries), the UK has the fifth highest lone parent rate, after Latvia, Estonia, the Czech Republic and the US.

Globally divorce rates have gone up about six fold since 1960.

It is estimated that in most developed nations including South Africa up to 15 percent of babies are born without a resident biological father.

Eriksson said, “It’s worth reflecting on these sobering statistics this Valentine’s day, we talk a lot about love, but today we say those words and forget it’s ancillary: commitment, which in turn is part of responsibility. We are good about our responsibilities in the workplace, but have forgotten responsibility for our personal happiness and for those closest to us. Maybe now is the time for a values check.”