Social - Cultural influences of family planning: A case of Naivasha town council.

Abstract

This study endeavoured to examine the factors which influenced adoption of ideas, either in terms of programmes or projects. Specifically, the author's efforts were directed to identifying the manner and degree in which Socio - Cultural factors influence the adoption of Family Planning in Naivasha Town Council. The work started,on the premise that Family Planning Programme had been in existence in Naivasha Town since early 1960s and yet only a small percentage of the population had actually accepted the idea. In an attempt to explain this state of affair, the researcher decided to take a Socio - Cultural approach whereby the following independent variables were considered. These were:- husband-wife communication, marital status, religion, group/ community pressure, preference for a son, and education. Since it is within the family that most important decisions and activities that influence fertility are made, the focus of this study has been the family which no doubt is the unit of analysis. The data was obtained from 210 respondents who composed of 40 single mothers, 90 married mothers and 80 men (husbands to the married mothers). This was supplimented by information got from Family Planning personnel, records in the Family Planning Clinic and from resource persons like church leaders. The findings reveal that the identified independent variables do actually influence adoption of Family Planning. Specifically, education was found to positively relate to adoption of Family Planning, and that group/community pressure was found to dictate whether one was to adopt, continue or withdraw from the Family Planning Programme. It also became clear that although most religious groups had no clear official stand on Family Planning, religion did dissuade people from adopting Family Planning. Preference for male children and the men's predominant role in decision making were also found to positively relate to the low adoption of Family Planning in the area. Finally, the married mothers were found to experience less group/community pressure to bear many children than the married mothers. Taken together the interact~on of all these factors explains for the low adoption of Family Planning in the area of study inspite of the efforts by the government to propagate the idea. In order therefore to step-up adoption of Family Planning, it is necessary for the program to address itself to social factors which for sometime now has been ignored.