The influence of socio-economic factors on male involvement in family planning: a case of Vihiga Kenya

Abstract

This study recognizes the importance of male involvement in family planning. It focuses on the factors that have an impact on male involvement in family planning. These factors include age, education level, employment status, income, family size, land acreage, male assumption of household expenses, dependence on wage earning and husband's aspiration of his children's education. The study sought to generate knowledge about the impact of the selected factors on male involvement in family planning in Vihiga division. The study also sought to expose the nature of the situation of male involvement in family planning in the area. Vihiga district and division were purposevily selected for the study due to the high population density in the area. Central Maragoli location was then randomly selected and all the four sub locations sampled. Each sublocation provided a number of respondents to make the final sample of 115 respondents. This was in respect to the ratio of the male population in each sublocation to the total male population in the division. Primary data was obtained through structured interviews in the form of questionnaires and four hypotheses formulated from the literature review and the study theoretical framework were tested.The education levels of both the re.s.p•on.d,.ents and their wives, the dependence on wage earning, the husband's assumption of household expenses were all found to have a positive but insignificant relationship to male involvement in family planning. However, the husband's aspiration for his children's education was found to have a positive and significant relationship to male involvement in family planning. Family size was found to have an inverse significant relationship to, male involvement in family planning, while land acreage owned had inverse but insignificant relationship. Positive communication between couples about contraceptive use was found to be common among 61.94% of the respondent's however only 17.81 % had engaged it early in child bearing. The study thus revealed that while the majority of the male parents viewed family planning as a remedy of the hard financial situation, a majority of them got involved after already having a large family size. The study also revealed that majority (71.4%) of the male parents use condoms only outside marriage unions, the most common reason for this being the fear of getting deadly disease AIDS. The research offers several recommendations that are hoped would raise male involvement in family planning and contraceptive use amongst couples in the location. The two main recommendations surround the issues of education and alleviation of poverty. As far as education is concerned, there is need to make the youth and young parents the target population for family planning education to avoid lateness regretted by some (21%) of the respondents.Reinforcement of the general male population in the family planning education programme is also stressed. The researcher also outlines the need to make secondary school and higher level of education affordable in order to give credibility to the male parents aspiration of his children's education which featured significantly as relating to male involvement in family planning. The improvement of socio-economic status of women and alleviation of poverty was also found to be of prime importance if family planning is to bring any meaningful advantage as far as family welfare is concerned. Finally, the researcher recommends further similar studies concentrating on socio-economic factors be carried out in other parts of the country. Previous studies have dwelt on socio cultural factors which portray a gloomy picture which the socialeconomic factors point to a situation if well exploited, leading to increased male involvement in family planning.