Empirical evidence of male factor as a determinant of reproductive behaviour in central senatorial district of Edo State, Nigeria.

The study examined the relationship between male factor and reproductive behaviour in Central Senatorial District of Edo State. The background to this study was derived from the need to find out more about why in spite of the existence of a population policy (population control) at ensuring a relatively population size in Nigeria, the population growth has continued to increased unabated. For this course, five (5) objectives and four (4) hypotheses were generated. A sample size of nine hundred (900) respondents (that is, married couples of childbearing age) was selected by multistage sampling method from the five Local Government Areas that constitute Central Senatorial district of Edo State. Data collection focused on social survey method, mainly on questionnaire. This was adopted to find out if there were relationships between: (i) educational attainment and reproductive behaviour (ii) religious belief system and attitude to family planning, (iii) husband’s attitude to family planning and spouse’s reproductive behaviour and (iv)sex of children and reproductive behaviour. For data analysis, socio-economic and demographic attributes of respondents were considered by percentage, white the formulated hypotheses were examined by Chi-Square (x2) statistical test. However, Cramer’s v contingency co-efficient test was used to ascertain the strength of relationship. The findings revealed high literacy level. Up to 96.07% of the respondents had one form of education or the other. Despite the very high percentage of education acquired among the people, certain traditional values still persisted. The percentage of male children preference (34.22%) was far higher than the percentage of female children preference (4.97%), a reflection of the standing value order of keeping the family’s name. The following findings were equally revealed: the existence of association between educational attainment and family size, the existence of relationship between religious belief system and attitude to family planning, as well as the existence of association between sex of children and reproductive behaviour. However, some recommendations were made to prevent the adverse or negative effects that could be derived from male factor in relation to reproductive behaviour and ensure a more sizeable population of ‘carrying capacity’ for sustainable development.