Nwizugbe Fertility Scale; the meter of fertility levels.

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Female fertility has been described as the ability of a woman to conceive or become pregnant after a sexual intercourse with a fertile man, irrespective of whether the pregnancy is carried to full tern, ended up in an abortion or still birth. The pregnancy history of a woman from the age of first menstrual period to menopause is described as her Total Fertility. The Total fertility rate (TFR), sometimes also called the fertility rate of a population, is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if she were to observe the prevailing age specific fertility rate (ASFR) and survive from birth through the end of her reproductive life. In 2005, a study on fertility level preferences by women in eight communities in Orsu Local Government Area of Imo State was conducted, and result showed that the fertility levels of the women in the studied communities were dropping down from being very high (7 children per woman) towards what could be described then as government promoted fertility levels (4 children per woman). This was a birth control measure imposed by the biting economic conditions of the time. According to Iloegbunam (2011), this was due to “the gross mismanagement of the economy under IBB administration. This administration blew billions of naira beyond computation in a tedious political transition programme that culminated with his nullification of the best presidential election ever conducted in this country. The obvious option was that couples were voluntarily compelled by their own economic hardships to reduce the number of children they wanted; but to what level? In order to further examine the fertility preferences for the women of south eastern Nigeria, this researcher therefore replicated the study done in 2005 in Imo State, but increased the coverage area to include wider communities selected from Imo and Abia States. The results that were achieved were relatively similar. Nevertheless, the question being asked is; how does the professional statistically categorize the fertility status of the women? Is it sufficient to claim that fertility level is low, or high? What is the yardstick to measure low or high? In order wards, how low or how high? It is an attempt to answering this question that led the researcher to compare the observed fertility trend with the Global fertility levels. He found a very close similarity in both patterns. He found that fertility trend globally is moving from very high to low levels and this is conditioned by urbanization and technological advancement. The less advanced or developed countries still maintain very high fertility levels with tendency to drop to low levels, while the highly developed countries have low fertility levels and struggle to keep it not to go extinct, because the urge to drop to replacement level or zero fertility is eminent. The author then constructed a scale upon which couples globally could decide on their fertility performance vis-a-vis their economic potentials. This he called “Nwizugbe Fertility Scale”. He defined fertility scale as a tool used to categorize the fertility status of a couple according to the number of their children. The scale grades fertility status into zero, low, medium, high and very high. It categorized fertility as follows: Fertility scale Score 1. Zero fertility 0 (No child). 2. Low fertility, or replacement fertility 1-2 children 3. Medium fertility 3-4 children 4. High fertility 5-6 children 5. Very high fertility 7+ children The arguments in favour of this scale are as follows: Nwizugbe Fertility Scale is a guide to family planning options for the family. This means that couples can be guided to decide how small or how large they would like their family size to be by looking at this scale. To the professional demographers, economists, and population practitioners, this scale has harmonized their divergences of measuring fertility performances, because it has developed a universal statistical quantum to different fertility categories. To the policy makers, the scale serves as an indicator towards policy options that guide population growth rate. The scale can act as a population growth alert to the Global Communities. Nwizugbe Fertility Scale. www.iosrjournals.org 71 | Page