On the Investigation of Awareness Level of Family Planning among Rural Dwellers in Nigeria (Principal Component Analysis Approach)

Abstract

This study examined the awareness level and attitude of family planning among rural dwellers in the South western part of Nigeria and its consequences on population/economy of Nigeria. Data were gathered from 300 respondents who were randomly selected from Seriki rural communities of western Nigeria using proportional allocation of the stratified random sampling technique. The research considered to know the level of awareness between the traditional family planning methods and modern methods of contraception. The modern methods were found to be more significantly embraced than traditional family planning methods based on the analysis of the result obtained which showed that 175% preferred modern methods while 125% preferred traditional methods. The factors considered in examining these are educational background, economic factors, marital status, social factor, ethnicity and illiteracy level; the data collected based on these factors are analyzed using principal component analysis technique in order to determine the most prevalent factor that causes attitudinal problems. The results give rise to the Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors of the components, whereby the variance proportion for each is given as 0.4844, 0.2391, 0.1480, 0.0597, 0.0461 and 0.0227 for economics, educational background, ethnicity, illiteracy, marital status and social status respectively, thereby qualifying the factors as the first PC, second PC, third PC, fourth PC, fifth PC and sixth PC respectively. Thus, economic factor which is the first PC is the factor that is predominantly responsible for the discovered low level of awareness and poor attitudinal behavior towards family planning.