Social Context of Fertility Intentions among Unmarried Young Adults in Nigeria: Implications for Fertility Transition

Joshua O. Akinyemi, University of Ibadan
Clifford O. Odimegwu, University of the Witwatersrand

In this paper, we explored the social contexts of fertility intentions by documenting the effects of individual, household as well as contextual characteristics on desired family size among young unmarried men and women in Nigeria. Analytical sample comprised 5882 males and 7209 females aged 15-24 years from the 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey. The mean ideal number of children among them was 6.6 and 5.0 respectively. Linear mixed models showed that among males, education, ethnicity and religion were significant individual-level predictors of ideal number of children. The significant contextual factors include community education (ß=-1.017), family planning message penetration (ß=-1.451) and marital postponement (ß=-2.471) all of which exhibited significant negative relationship. For females, the same individual-level characteristics were statistically significant correlates of ideal number of children. Further, the significant contextual factors were child mortality experience (ß=0.368); opposition to family planning (ß=1.024) and marital postponement (ß=-1.607).