Religious Roles in Fertility Behaviour among the Residents of Akinyele Local Government, Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

A B S T R A C T This paper work on fertility differential among various religions in Akinyele Local Government area of Oyo State aimed at finding the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the studied area. The fertility level was examined, the relationship between the level of fertility and religious belief and the current state of knowledge, attitudes, and practice of family planning programs as it affects different religion. The duo of purposive sampling and simple random sampling methods were used to administer questionnaire. In all two thousand, four hundred questionnaire (2400) were administered out of which only two thousand, one hundred and ninety seven (2,197) were returned successfully. The information was tabulated and the percentage responses were taken, so also, multiple regression analysis chi-square analysis and ANOVA was done by the use of SPSS. It was discovered that over 70 percent of the respondents could neither read nor write and over 80 percent are self-employed. More than 75 percent are of polygamous settings and over 65 percent believed that they should have as many numbers of children as God's permits. The implication of this study is that Muslims and Traditionalists had highest number of children in the studied area (the two accounting for over 78 percent while Christian accounted for less than 22 percent). Six hypotheses were tested and all alternative hypotheses were accepted, all pointing to the fact that religion is a strong determinant of fertility and other socio-economic variables.