Contraceptive Use and the Quality, Price, and Availability of Family Planning in Nigeria Book

Nigeria has experienced high fertility and rapid population growth for at least the past 30 years. The 1990 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) found a total fertility rate of about 6 children. The mean " desired " family size among the 40 percent of women who gave numerical answers was about 5.8, and the other 60 percent of women replied that the total was " up to God " . Only recently have public authorities become interested in slowing rapid population growth, launching efforts to promote contraceptive use. In this paper, individual women are linked to the characteristics of the nearest pharmacy, health facility and source of family planning to assess the relative importance of their socioeconomic background and characteristics of nearby services on contraceptive use and fertility. The source of data is the 1990 Nigeria DHS. The results suggest that the limited levels of female schooling (and probably other factors affecting women ' s opportunity cost of time) are constraining contraceptive use, especially in rural areas. Policies to raise female schooling will raise contraceptive use and lower fertility, holding constant the characteristics of services. A second major constraint to increased contraceptive use is the low availability of family planning services in Nigeria. Broader availability of the pill through pharmacy outlets and of the injection and IUD in fixed health facilities is likely to raise contraceptive use. Outpatient or consultation fees at nearby health facilities do not appear to be constraining demand for modern methods. However, the access, price and quality of services, while important to adoption of modern contraception, are not significant determinantsof fertility, with the exception of the price of the pill.