Fertility preferences among the currently married women: A case study of Abogeta location in Meru district

Abstract

This study is concerned with the investigation of the factors that influence desired family size of currently married women at the micro-level. The study aims at establishing how the various socioeconomic, socio-cul tural and demographic factors affect the desired family size. The factors investigated include the following factors: Religion,income, parity, occupation, education, age at first marriage and sex preference. Multiple regression analysis is used as the major technique of statistical analysis. The analysis of the data revealed that the selected seven variables accounted for 50.18 per cent variance in desired family size among the currently married women interviewed. The corresponding F-statistic-Value of 53.68 was significant at 0.01 level. This means that the differentials in the levels of the desired family size were apparent in the data. The t-test for the individual coefficients (~'s) showed that among the seven selected variables ...~•~...P•aJ;j..t~.""s'e"xcAndpreference were the .only factors influencing the desired family size significantly. Religion (REL) , income (INC) , occupation (CCUPT), age at first marriage (AGEMAR) were all found to be negatively related to the desired family size with correlation coefficients of r=-O.0029, r=- 0.0435,r=-0.1165 and r=-o.1904 respectively.parity, level of education and sex pre~ference were all found to be positively related to desired family size. Their correlation coefficients with desired family size were: r=0.6408, r=0.0590 and r=0.6931 respectively. All the hypothesized relationships were confirmed except for the level of education variable whose positive relationship with desired family size was not anticipated. Perhaps, this could be because the area of study was rural and as such the influence of education in determining desired family size does not have strong impact. Further, socio-cultural imperatives are more operative in the rural areas. For instance, the desire for large family is required for domestic labour in the rural areas. Finally, the synthetic cohort approach yielded a mean completed family size of 3.102 children with a standard deviation of 1.077 means that in the face of the socio-economic considerations, Meru women would tend to achieve smal•.l family size