Abstinence as a method of birth control. Fertility and child-spacing practices among rural Yoruba women of Nigeria
Orubuloye, I.O.
Monograph, Changing African Family Project Series, Department of Demography, Australian National University 8: 116
1981
Document Number: 330996
The purpose of the investigation reported is two-fold: (1) to examine the pattern of fertility among the Yoruba women living in selected rural communities; and (2) to identify and quantify the relative contributions of some of the intermediate fertility variables to fertility variations between the women living in these communities. The study also includes an in-depth study of the few early adopters of the conventional fertility control methods and of changes that are likely to precede fertility change in the rural areas of Nigeria. The study demonstrates the major role which abstinence for birth spacing can play even in one of the world's most pro-natalist regions. It also makes it clear how, where such traditions are under attack, education, urbanization and other factors of modernization and westernization may actually serve to raise fertility levels in the first instance.