Female education and Fertility Desires in Cameroon

Sammanfattning: AbstractSocio-economic changes have been identified to alter demographic behaviour, most especially fertility desires. Cameroon just like most Sub Saharan African countries started experiencing decline in its fertility rates not too long ago. A couple of factors have been identified to influence women’s childbearing. Education has been pinpointed as one of the pivotal factors that play a role in influencing female fertility desire. Discussion on education in this paper is made in reference to educational attainment. This research had the aim of examining whether education level attainment (i.e. primary, secondary and university) influences women’s desire to have another child in Cameroon. The target group of the study was women who had at least one child, and their ages ranged from 15 to 45 years. To be able to conduct the study the 2011 demographic health survey (DHS) was used. The demographic theory and demand for children concept were used to provide theoretical framework on the topic. The study was based on the contention that the higher the education level of women, the lesser the desire to have children. From the logistic regression performed, the results portrayed that educational level does influence women’s decision to have another child especially for women with primary and secondary education. Women with no education are more likely to want to have another child than women with education. Women with primary and secondary education are significantly less likely to want another child than those with higher education. This result tends to be fall in line to what was expected. The results showed that although education shapes fertility desires, the number of living children, husband employment and household status tend to play more significant role in women’s desire to have another child in Cameroon. Keywords; fertility, Cameroon, female education, demographic health survey, logistic regression