Women’s Empowerment and Completed Fertility in Nigeria: What Is the Modulating Effect of Religion on the Relationship?

Abstract

There is scarce information on the relationship between women’s empowerment and completed fertility, briefly defined as the number of children born by a woman at the end of her reproductive years, in most sub-Saharan African countries including Nigeria. This study examined the modulating effect of religion on the relationship between women’s empowerment and completed fertility among married women/women in union aged 45 to 49, using the 2013 and 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) datasets. Data were analyzed using frequency distribution and Poisson regression. The study concludes that empowered women have significantly lower completed fertility compared to non-empowered women and that religion slightly influenced the relationship between women’s empowerment and completed fertility among married women/women in union aged 45 to 49 in Nigeria.

Keywords:

• Women’s empowerment
• completed fertility
• Nigeria
• religion
• children

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).