Migration Status, Reproductive Behaviour and Fertility in the City of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examined migration status and reproductive behaviour and fertility of women in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. The study contends that fertility behaviour of urban women is better understood when examined within the contexts of system and voluntary social action analysis. The study reveals that migrants have lower fertility than non-migrants. This is in the expected direction even though the relationship is not statistically significant. Among the reasons, migrants are generally more progressive and tend to exhibit higher levels of motivation with respect to family and lifestyle matters, being better educated and with higher levels of aspiration. The major childbearing behaviours, such as age at first marriage, ideal birth interval, ideal length of breastfeeding and knowledge, attitudes and contraceptive use, were found to be relatively higher among migrants than non-migrant women. Again, these differences are hardly significant, partly due to the small sample size analysed here.The result of this study could warrant a possible future fertility decline among migrants, but also not excluding the non-migrants, if the current level of use of contraceptives continues to improve. The effects of these factors may translate into low urban fertility desires and the adoption of small family size norms in the nearest future