FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE BEHAVIOUR, SPOUSAL COMMUNICATION AND FAMILY SIZE AMONG THE YORUBAS OF SOUTH-WESTERN NIGERIA

Evidence from various studies has shown that the persistently high population growth in Sub-Saharan Africa countries in general and Nigeria in particular has been as a result of preference for large family size and marginal use of contraceptives by women. This study examined the inter-relationships between female reproductive behaviour, spousal communication and family size as well as the interplay of factors affecting them.
Eight- Hundred respondents were interviewed using multi-stage sampling procedure. Analysis of the data collected was done at three levels. The results of our findings confirmed the hypothesis that spousal communication on reproductive issues will exert a strong influence on fertility outcomes and contraceptive use. Results show that generally among the Yorubas, while knowledge of contraceptive is high, usage is still relatively low. As high as 70 percent of males and 62 percent of female respondents claimed knowledge of at least one contraceptive method, but the proportion of males and females using any of these methods was low (38.5 percent and 31.3 percent respectively). The study shows that contraceptive prevalence rate among males is higher than that of females. The study recommends that men and women should be focused in reproductive matters by increasing their knowledge.