UNCONTROLLED BIRTHRATE AND OVERPOPULATION IN NIGERIA
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UNCONTROLLED BIRTHRATE AND OVERPOPULATION IN NIGERIA
Introduction
Uncontrolled fertility occurs when an individual or couple fails to plan their future family size in accordance with their family’s economic situation. It can also occur when youths (adolescents, teenagers, or adults) engage in unlawful intercourse, resulting in an undesired pregnancy.
Fertility is frequently higher in poor countries than in developed ones, therefore women in countries such as Ethiopia, Liberia, Nigeria, and others have more children in their lifetime.
In general, limiting family size in Africa is a selfish act by individuals reluctant to make personal sacrifices for the benefit of society as a whole.
This is why, in Nigeria, the more children a lady (or couple) has, the society deems the couple to be matrimonially fulfilled. Uncontrolled fertility is caused by a number of causes that can be divided into two categories: proximate and distal.
The proximal factors are bio-behavioral factors, also known as the intermediate determinants, and are; the biological, reproductive, and behavioural factors, through which the indirect determinants must devour to affect fertility directly, while the later, distal determinants are socio-cultural factors
which consists of socio-economic and demographic factors that affect fertility indirectly by affecting the bio-behavioral factors (Dube, 2013 citing Yohannes et A comprehensive knowledge of these elements is critical in addressing the issue of uncontrolled fertility, which has huge positive and negative repercussions.
According to Gafar et al. (2009), some of the implications of increased fertility include an improvement in individual or family status and wealth, as well as an increase in social security at old age.
The younger generation ensures that the community has enough people to defend itself, as well as additional hands on farms and in vocational pursuits.
On the contrary, the increase has resulted in increased poverty, deterioration of social and physical infrastructure due to pressure on facility use, rising unemployment, particularly among youths, resulting in social unrest, an increase in crime and cost of living, malnutrition, ill health, environmental degradation, and so on.
According to Onoja and Osayomore (2012), less developed countries like Nigeria can prosper economically if population growth is limited (due to inadequate human capacity building).
For example, unregulated fertility has been shown to have a negative impact on the socioeconomic, demographic, and environmental growth of countries such as Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.
Aside from that, studies conducted in Nigeria and other less developed nations have revealed that unemployment is closely associated to high fertility rates and their long-term consequences, such as population expansion.
Fertility is the most essential component of population dynamics, and it has a significant impact on the size and structure of a given population over time (Dube, 2013, citing Yohannes et al, 2004).
Fertility is often determined by economic and social factors, although culture is extremely important in Africa. According to the Population Council (1987), the rationale for Sub-Saharan Africa’s high and consistent fertility rate is largely due to a religious belief system and supporting social framework that has provided both spiritual and economic benefits to high marital fertility.
Thus, persecution occurs when a marriage fails to produce a kid, particularly the preferred male child. According to Friedlin Hunter and Whitten (1977), a guy who owns a large amount of land but has no children is pitied; the man’s wife is even more unhappy.
Living up to expectations has ramifications for population. The growing number of children, for example, puts a strain on organisations that provide services like education and health.
Their health and education are low, with a lack of basic skills. With lower mortality and less international migration (Juha, 1992), stagnating economies are unable to employ the majority of new entrants into the labour market.
This reasoning shifts in time and geography as social and economic conditions differ across geographical regions and historical periods.
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