The Achieved Small Family: Early Fertility Transition in an African City

A survey was conducted in Ibadan City Nigeria in 1973 among all completed Yoruba families that were through deliberate fertility limitation. All eligible women i.e. those with 5 or fewer deliberately chosen live births were interviewed; husbands who had played a role in the decision were also included. The number of so-called innovators was very small - 1.4% of all women aged 40 or over with younger women slightly more likely to be among the group. Innovators were slightly more likely to be in the modernized sectors of the community the wives more likely to have a secondary education and the husbands more likely to have urban nonmanual jobs. More important than the socioeconomic variables in influencing the decision to have a small (by Nigerian standards) family was the actual nature of the family. It was emotionally close and child-centered. The demographic innovator families were less likely than others in the survey to suffer from child mortality. The small families were not the result of contraceptive practice; sexual abstinence even permanent abstinence after the birth of the 4th or 5th child resulted in the small family.