Latent and Under-explored Determinants of Contraceptive Use in Nigeria

Abstract

The Nigerian population policy targeted a 30.2% prevalence of modern contraceptives among its population by the year 2015. In spite of the widespread knowledge of contraceptive use among the population, the prevalence stood at 12% in 2018. This study, riding on several previous studies on the determinants of contraceptive use in Nigeria, investigates the latent and under-explored determinants against the background that what is known has not significantly translated to the realization of the country’s population policy targets. Using data on 27,274 married and in-union women aged 15–49 from the 2013 Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey, the relationships between sex preference, family composition, intimate partner violence, and coital frequency and contraceptive use were analyzed using bivariate statistics and logistic regression. The prevalence of contraceptive use was 9.9%, and in both the unadjusted and adjusted regression models with other known sociodemographic confounders of contraceptive use, family composition, and active coital frequency predicted increased odds of utilization (P < 0.001). Preference for sons was latent and implicated in family composition and contraceptive use. The study concludes that ethnic differences and cultural attributes of the ethnic groups which underlie issues of family composition should be given prominence in efforts at scaling up contraceptive use in Nigeria. With the findings from this study, population control policies in Nigeria and efforts at scaling up contraceptive utilization in particular, should be tailor-made to accommodate ethnic differences and inherent cultural attributes of the more than 380 ethnic groups in the country as this was found to underlie fertility preferences and how family composition is viewed.