The Effect of Fertility on Women’s Health and the Determinants of Fertility in Cameroon

Abstract

The World Fact Book ranked Cameroon at the 20^th position with a fertility rate of 4.66 in 2020. UNSD Database (2020) gives the fertility rate of Cameroon as 5.4, 5.2 and 5.0 for 2005, 2010 and 2019 respectively. In the rank for the most obese countries, Cameroon was the 135^th with an average BMI of 11.4 in 2016. In 2019, 11.4% of Cameroonians were obese with an average BMI of 24.4%. These figures show that years with higher fertility rates had lower levels of life expectancy and BMI. This is a possible indication of a direct link between fertility and health. This work was aimed at investigating the determinants of fertility and the effect of fertility on women’s health (BMI) in Cameroon. The expo-facto research design and pooled data from the 1991, 1998, 2004, 2011 and 2018 Cameroon DHS data sets were used. The total sample size stood at 50,131. The Instrumental Variable Probit Model, 2SLS Regression were used to analyze the data. Fertility had a positive and statistically significant effect on health. The use of contraceptives, knowledge on ovulation, age at first sex, age at first cohabitation, women’s employment, education, husband’s education, wealth level, religion and lifetime sex partners all had negative and statistically significant influence on women’s fertility. Age and region of origin had a positive and statistically significant influence on women’s fertility. Women’s educational level, husband’s education, skipping meals and religion all had positive and statistically significant influence women’s health. Age, husband’s occupation, lifetime sex partners, women’s employment, use of modern contraceptives, husband’s age, age at first birth, respondent’s occupation had a negative and statistically significantly influence on women’s health. The study recommended birth spacing for 2 years minimum to give the woman’s body time to lose weight naturally.