EFFECT OF FORMAL EDUCATION ON NIGERIAN WOMEN’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS FAMILY PLANNING
ABSTRACT
The study sought to ascertain the impact of formal education on Nigerian women’s attitudes toward family planning. In addition, the study reviewed relevant and extensive literature under subheadings. In this study, the descriptive research survey design was used to assess the opinions of the respondents through the use of a questionnaire and a sampling technique. A total of 160 (one hundred and sixty) respondents were chosen as samples to represent the study’s entire population.
In this study, four null hypotheses were developed and tested at the 0.05 level of significance using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation and the independent t-test statistical tools. The following results were obtained at the conclusion of the analyses:
1.Hypothesis one revealed that adult educational programs have a significant influence on couples’ family planning. 2.Hypothesis two discovered that a couple’s socioeconomic status has a significant impact on their level of family planning.
3.Hypothesis three results show that couples’ religious beliefs have a significant relationship with their level of family planning.
4.Hypothesis four demonstrates that there is a significant difference in the attitudes of educated couples and illiterate couples toward family planning. The null hypothesis was rejected in all cases. This demonstrates that adult educational programs have a significant influence on the level of family planning among couples in Lagos State’s Ikeja Local Government Area.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Study’s Background
Education can be defined as a dynamic activity that entails a systematic, deliberate, and long-term effort to develop knowledge and skills (Olusakin, 1998). According to Awoniyi (1999), formal education is the process by which the human mind develops through school learning in stages ranging from pre-primary to primary, secondary, and tertiary (university) institutions.
The current socioeconomic situation in Nigeria has made it clear that women, like their male counterparts, require a solid, formal education.
According to Lai (1995), a woman had little or no status as a person in her own right in the past. Women were viewed as their husbands’ property in Nigerian society, and as such, had no say in the affairs of their own home. The women’s roles essentially consisted of caring for their husbands and children, in-laws, the family compound, child-bearing and child-rearing.
Her position was also assumed to be in the kitchen. However, only a few people would deny that women play important roles in society. Even though the average Nigerian woman continues to perform her basic traditional roles as a daughter to her parents, sister to her siblings, wife to her husband, mother to her children, and daughter or sister inlaw to her husband’s family, she is economically viable and contributes financially to the family’s upkeep.
According to Adiele (2000), before independence, girl-child education was not a common occurrence in traditional Nigerian society. In fact, her birth would not be celebrated as much as the male- child’s, and depending on how many female children the mother had given birth to before her, the birth of another girl-child could force her mother to marry. Even among educated men, this is still a major issue in some homes.
Education should be regarded as an excellent line of defense for women confronted with life-threatening situations that traditional lifestyles perpetuate. It opens the door to a plethora of options that are not available through traditional means (Nwagwu, 1996).
According to Grange (1997), education promotes shaping one’s own destiny. The situation of the educated Nigerian woman goes beyond motherhood and improves the quality of life in her family.
As a result, incessant child-bearing puts a woman in a very vulnerable position physically, economically, and psychologically; however, barrenness is viewed as a curse in Nigerian society due to high infantile mortality; however, advances in medicine have greatly increased the survival rate among both infants and adults.
According to Onyeanwu (2001), incessant child-bearing is therefore no longer necessary; instead, it poses a significant risk to the mother’s health as well as increased family size that cannot be supported by family resources, especially now that the Nigerian economy has tanked, resulting in unemployment among men in society.
To improve the living conditions of Nigerian families, the lives of women, who are the cornerstone of every household, should be improved, and the regulation of the size of the size of the size of the nuclear family, through family planning, cannot be overemphasized (Lai, 1990).
There has been a lot of discrimination against women. Despite the availability of family planning, people only see them as breeding machines. The dissemination of relevant and appropriate information would result in the acquisition of knowledge skills and the empowerment of women.
This can help to break the intractable poverty cycle that many Nigerian families have become associated with due to a lack of knowledge about family planning devices and a negative attitude among many women toward the use of such devices.
According to Halsall (1997), if women’s health and status remain poor, if their access to land and other facilities remains limited, and if they are held back by ill-timed or unwanted pregnancies, societal development will be slowed.
1.3 Problem Description
There has been a lot of discrimination against women. Despite the availability of family planning, people still see them as breeding machines.
The dissemination of appropriate and relevant family planning information would result in the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and women’s empowerment. This can help to break the intractable poverty cycles that many Nigerian families have become associated with due to a lack of knowledge about family planning devices and a negative attitude among many women toward their use.
According to Halsall (1977), if women’s health and status remain poor, if their access to land and other facilities remains limited, and if they continue to be hampered by a lack of information about family, unwanted pregnancies, and sexual diseases, societal development will be slowed.
Furthermore, the problem that is involved in the neglect of family planning cannot be overstated. Without family planning, for example, there will be a population explosion, which could lead to a shortage of food and other necessities in the country.
According to Uzomah (2004), women who are not exposed to formal education lack necessary information, particularly on family planning, and the majority of them have died in their attempt to have children.
As a result, the purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of formal education on Nigerian women’s attitudes toward family planning.
1.4 The Study’s Purpose
The goal of this study is to look at how formal education affects Nigerian women’s attitudes toward family planning.
The following are some of the study’s specific objectives:
1. Determine the differences in women’s attitudes toward formal education in Nigerian society.
2. To see if there are any differences in women’s attitudes toward family planning.
3. To see if there is a difference in attitudes between women with formal education and those who do not.
4. Determine whether there is a difference in the level of awareness of family planning among women with and without formal education.
5. To determine whether there will be a difference in the number of children born to women with formal education versus those born to women without formal education.
1.5 Research Issues
In this study, the following research questions were posed:
1. Will women’s attitudes toward formal education influence their family planning method?
2. How can we tell if there is a difference in women’s attitudes toward formal education?
3. To what extent can we investigate whether there are differences in women’s attitudes toward family planning in Nigeria?
4. Is there a difference in the attitudes of women who have received formal education versus those who have not?
5. Is there a difference in the level of awareness of family planning among women with and without formal education?
1.6 Hypotheses for Research
In this study, the following research hypotheses were proposed:
1. There will be no significant difference in the attitudes of women with formal education and those without formal education toward family planning.
2. There will be no statistically significant difference in the level of awareness of family planning among women with and without formal education.
3. There will be no statistically significant difference between the number of children born to women with formal education and those born to women without formal education.
1.7 Importance of the Research
This research will be beneficial in a variety of ways, including: For example, the government has continued to devote a significant portion of her health-care funds to financing family planning activities in the hope that adoption of the modern method will give women a better socioeconomic position. As a result, this study investigates the impact of formal education on Nigerian women’s attitudes toward family planning and their use of various family planning programs and services.
The study’s findings and recommendations will be extremely useful to manpower planners, administrators, and other program implementers not only in Lagos Mainland Local Government, but also in Lagos State as a whole. The study’s findings and recommendations will be equally beneficial to couples and other individuals if they attempt to implement all or most of the study’s suggestions or recommendations in the interest of women, children, and entire families in Nigeria.
The study’s findings and recommendations will undoubtedly benefit school administrators. Also, they will benefit from the exposure this study will provide them with because they will be able to plan for a larger enrolment in the short run.
The state government will benefit from this study as well because it will assist her in carrying out a better projection or expected needs of the state population in order to raise per capita income.
Finally, the population commission officials will benefit greatly from this study because it will assist them in regulating the country’s child birth rate if the recommendations made in this study are followed and implemented.
This study will also benefit society because it will serve as a good reference material for the general public, particularly adult members of society. This study will also be useful as a reference for students of various levels.
1.8 The Study’s Scope
The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of formal education on Nigerian women’s attitudes toward family planning in the Mainland Local Government Area of Lagos State.
1.9 Term Definitions
In this study, operational terms were defined as follows:
1. Fertility Rate: This is the sum of all fertility obtained from the age specific rate for each year of child bearing span, resulting in the number of children per thousand women with no mortality.
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