Fertility Attitudes Among Male Ghanaian Government Employees

Abstract

Most fertility/family planning research in Ghana has focused upon women to the neglect of men. This paper however reports findings from a 1992 survey investigating the perceptions of 484 Ghanaian male government employees on population problems in Ghana attitudes toward abortion and family planning attitudes toward children and attitudes toward family size. The study population was drawn from the government departments of health agriculture education and administration and was of mean age 39.5 years in the range of 21-60. 88.8% were married and 8.7% single. Study findings indicate that the majority of males believe that Ghanas population is too large; they agree that abortion should be legalized and made accessible to any woman who wishes to have abortion but disagree with government interference with the number of children a couple should have; they have a positive attitude toward childbearing; they believe in continued reproduction until the desired proportion of boys and girls are obtained; they do not agree that there should be a relationship between the number of children a couple bears and available family resources; and they believe that an educated man should have as many children as possible even though educational status is found to be inversely related to the number of children ideal number of children and ideal number of female children. The implications of these findings and future research issues are discussed.