Fertility In Kenya Research Articles

Adolescent fertility and its determinants in Kenya: Evidence from Kenya demographic and health survey 2014

Adolescent fertility in Kenya is vital in the development and execution of reproductive health policies and programs. One of the specific objectives of the Kenyan Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health (ASRH) policy developed in 2015 is to decrease early and unintended pregnancies in an attempt to reduce adolescent fertility. We aimed to establish determinants of adolescent fertility in Kenya. The Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) 2014 data set was utilized. Adolescent's number of children ever born was the dependent variable. The Chi-square test was utilized to determine the relationship between dependent and independent variables. A Proportional-odds model was performed to establish determinants of adolescent fertility at a 5% significance level. Over 40% of the adolescent girls who had sex below 17 years had given birth i.e, current age 15-17 years (40.9%) and <15 years (44.9%) had given birth. In addition, 70.7% of the married adolescents had given birth compared to 8.1% of the unmarried adolescents. Moreover, 65.1% of the adolescents who were using contraceptives had given birth compared to only 9% of the adolescents who were not using a contraceptive. Approximately 29.4% of the adolescents who had no education had given birth compared to 9.1% who had attained secondary education. Age at first sex (18-19 years: OR: 0.221, 95% CI: 0.124-0.392; 15-17 years: OR: 0.530, 95% CI: 0.379-0.742), current age (18-19 years: OR: 4.727, 95% CI: 3.318-6.733), current marital status (Not married: OR:0.212, 95% CI: 0.150-4.780), and current contraceptive use (Using: OR 3.138, 95% CI: 2.257-4.362) were associated with adolescent fertility. The study established that age at first sex, current age, marital status, and contraceptive use are the main determinants of adolescent childbearing. The stated determinants should be targeted by the government to control the adolescent birth rate in Kenya. Consequently, delaying the age at first sex, discouraging adolescent marriage, and increasing secondary school enrollment among adolescent girls are recommended strategies to control adolescent fertility in Kenya.

Economic Evaluation of Organic and Inorganic Sources of Nitrogen under Striga Infestation in Western Kenya

Due to escalating cost of imported fertilizers, there is renewed interest in the use of local nutrient resources in managing soil fertility in Kenya. The effect of integrated use of urea and Calliandra or maize stover on maize yields, financial benefits was assessed in a field experiment carried at Nyabeda in western Kenya. Urea and Calliandra or maize stover were combined in a way to supply N at 75 kg ha-1 from both sources in 100:0, 80:20, 60:40, 40:60, 20:80, 0:100, 0:0 ratios arranged in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with 12 treatments replicated four times in five consecutive seasons. Gross margins and benefit cost ratios were used for the analysis.&#x0D; Overall, maize stover (30 kg N ha-1) combined with urea (45 kg N ha-1) and Calliandra ( 45 kg N ha-1) combined with urea (30 kg N ha-1) gave the highest mean total biomass yields of 8.3 and 7.9 t ha-1 respectively. The two treatments out yielded the control by 89 and 80% respectively. The control and sole maize stover (75 kg N ha-1) had the lowest yields across all the seasons.&#x0D; The highest net benefits (71 USD) were recorded under maize stover (45 kg N ha-1) combined with urea (30 kg N ha-1) followed by Calliandra (30 kg N ha-1) combined with urea (45 kg N ha-1) at (68 USD). Sole application of maize stover gave the lowest benefit (-553 USD). Calliandra (30 kg N ha-1) combined with urea (45 kg N ha-1) was the only treatment that had a benefit: cost ratio approaching 2, and therefore, the most likely of the tested technologies to be adopted by farmers. These results suggest that the use of both Calliandra and maize stover with modest amount of inorganic fertilizers (urea) is more profitable than sole use of either of the two N sources.

Social interactions, ethnicity, religion, and fertility in Kenya

AbstractReproductive externalities are important for fertility behavior in Kenya. We identify from anthropology structural forms of social interaction operating across individuals belonging to different ethnic and religious groups on the number of children ever born. We use the 1998 Demographic and Health Survey, combined with primary meteorological data on Kenya, and GMM methods, to show that social interaction effects by ethnicity are important over and above an individual's characteristics such as their religion to explain variations in fertility. Our findings have implications for policy debates in Kenya and in other developing countries about ethnic, religious, and other differences in fertility behavior.

Tillage Method and Residual N, P, K, Zn, B, Mg, Ca, and S Nutrients Effect on Growth and Yield of Dry Bean Grown after the Harvest of Maize

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) production is constrained majorly by drought and low soil fertility in Kenya. These limitations have never been adequately approached due to financial challenges and lack of better technology. A study was carried out in Kirinyaga and Embu Counties to evaluate the effects of tillage method and residual fertilizers on yield performance of dry bean. Dry bean was grown in the short rains season on plots preceded by fertilized maize (Zea mays L.) grown in the long rains season. The trials were laid out in a randomized complete block design with a split-plot arrangement. The tillage methods, NT+CR and CT-CR, where NT: No-tillage, CT: Conventional tillage, and CR: Crop residue, were assigned the main plot and residual fertilizers (NK, NP, PK, NPK, and NPK+CaMgZnBS) the subplots. The results showed that there was 35% and 46% more water retention under NT+CR than under CT-CR system in Embu and Kirinyaga sites, respectively. NT+CR produced higher biomass, more number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, and 1000-seed weight. Plots with residual NPK+ZnBMgCaS yielded higher biomass at 60 DAE, number of seeds per pod, 1000-seed weight and grain yield than plots with other treatments. The residual NPK+ZnBMgCaS and NPK treatments out yielded PK treatment by 600 kg ha-1 and 370 kg ha-1 (Embu) and by 710 kg ha-1 and 330 kg ha-1 (Kirinyaga), respectively. Based on these results, cultivation of dry bean on residual fertilizer nutrients solely or in combination with no-till and crop residue retention after maize harvest has the potential to improve the yields and food security among farmers in the region.

EFFECTS OF COMBINING ORGANIC MATERIALS WITH INORGANIC PHOSPHORUS SOURCES ON MAIZE YIELD AND FINANCIAL BENEFITS IN WESTERN KENYA

SUMMARYDue to escalating costs of imported fertilizers, there is renewed interest in the use of local nutrient resources in managing soil fertility in Kenya. We tested the effect of two organic materials, farmyard manure (FYM) and Tithonia diversifolia (tithonia), and an inorganic N fertilizer, urea, when applied alone or in combination with three inorganic P sources, triple superphosphate (TSP), Minjingu phosphate rock (MPR) and Busumbu phosphate rock (BPR), on maize yields and financial benefits. The study was conducted for three consecutive seasons, from March 2007 to August 2008 in western Kenya. FYM and tithonia were applied to supply 20 kg P ha−1 in treatments where they were used either alone or in combination with the inorganic P sources while 40 kg P ha−1 was from the inorganic P sources in the combination. Where urea was used, the inorganic P sources were applied at 60 kg P ha−1. When applied in combination with urea, MPR was a better P source for maize than TSP or BPR. However, when applied in combination with FYM or tithonia, TSP was the best P source. Treatments including tithonia were more effective in increasing maize yields than those without it with a similar total P application rate. The agronomic effectiveness of tithonia did not, however, translate to economic attractiveness, mainly due to very high labour costs associated with its use. FYM when applied alone at 20 kg P ha−1 was the only treatment that exceeded a benefit:cost ratio of 2 and, therefore, the most likely, of the tested technologies to be adopted by farmers.

PERIOD AND COHORT DYNAMICS IN FERTILITY NORMS AT THE ONSET OF THE DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION IN KENYA 1978–1998

A characteristic of African pre-transitional fertility regimes is large ideal family size. This has been used to support claims of cultural entrenchment of high fertility. Yet in Kenya fertility rates have fallen. In this paper this fall is explored in relation to trends in fertility norms and attitudes using four sequential cross-sectional surveys spanning the fertility transition in Kenya (1978, 1984, 1989 and 1998). The most rapid fall in the reported ideal family size occurred between 1984 and 1989, whilst the most rapid fall in the total fertility rate occurred 5 to 10 years later, between 1989 and 1998. Thus these data, spanning the fertility transition in Kenya, support the traditional demographic model that demand for fertility limitation drives fertility decline. These data also suggest that the decline in fertility norms over time was partly a period effect, as the reported ideal family size was seen to fall simultaneously in all age cohorts, and partly a cohort effect, as older age cohorts reporting higher ideal family sizes were replaced by younger cohorts reporting lower ideal family sizes. These data also suggest that a new fertility norm of four children may have developed by 1989 and continued until 1998. This is consistent with, and perhaps could have been used to predict, the stall in the Kenyan fertility decline after 1998.

Fertility in Kenya and Uganda: A comparative study of trends and determinants

Between 1980 and 2000 total fertility in Kenya fell by about 40 per cent, from some eight births per woman to around five. During the same period, fertility in Uganda declined by less than 10 per cent. An analysis of the proximate determinants shows that the difference was due primarily to greater contraceptive use in Kenya, though in Uganda there was also a reduction in pathological sterility. The Demographic and Health Surveys show that women in Kenya wanted fewer children than those in Uganda, but that in Uganda there was also a greater unmet need for contraception. We suggest that these differences may be attributed, in part at least, first, to the divergent paths of economic development followed by the two countries after Independence; and, second, to the Kenya Government's active promotion of family planning through the health services, which the Uganda Government did not promote until 1995.

Behavioural Effects of Infant and Child Mortality on Fertility in Kenya

This paper analyses the behavioural effects of infant and child mortality on birth intervals in Kenya. Analysing the behavioural effects of infant and child mortality on fertility independent of its biological effects has been considered a difficult task. In this paper, a procedure for analysing these effects separately is developed and applied to the 1989 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) data. The results of the analysis suggests that women in Kenya adopt various strategies such as curtailing the duration of breastfeeding, increasing frequency of coitus, and to a lesser extent use of contraception in order to replace infant or children who have died or to insure against those who are likely to die. These findings suggest the existence of behavioural effects of infant and child mortality on fertility in Kenya.

African Jubilee: Mau Mau Resurgence and the Fight for Fertility in Kenya, 1986–2002

ABSTRACT This study examines a key moment in the “fight for fertility” in post-colonial Kenya: the large-scale reappropriation of land by landless people across Kenya in the new millennium. This rebirth of the 1950s Mau Mau armed struggle for “land and freedom” is pursued through the 4.5 million-strong Congress—Mungiki in Kikuyu—and the Organization of Villagers—Muungano wa Wanavijiji. It is a struggle between subsistence and commodification, which is conceptualized as a fight for control over fertility. Fertility is understood as the capacity to produce people, food, cultural expressions, social networks, and natural and built space. The fight for control over fertility is a three way struggle amongst i) women producers and their male allies who seek to defend and revive subsistence, ii) Kenyan “male dealers” who seek to control women's labour and other production resources within commodified capitalist relations, and iii) international capitalists and their governmental brokers. The study examines ten cases of land occupation and assesses the gains and losses to each of the three sets of actors in the fight for fertility. It concludes that women subsistence producers and their allies in gendered class alliances have gained much ground and that the Kenyan land occupations are part of the movement for globalization from below to rebuild the civil commons alternative to corporate rule.

Reproductive change in Zimbabwe and Kenya: the role of the proximate determinants in recent fertility trends.

This study examines trends in proximate determinants of fertility in Zimbabwe and Kenya. Findings from the four Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in these countries show that the dramatic fall in fertility in these countries is consistent with the underlying trends in the most important proximate determinants of fertility. In Zimbabwe, contraceptive use far exceeds other proximate determinants in influencing fertility levels and trends. The results show that the fertility inhibiting effects of contraception are more important than the effects of postpartum infecundability, marriage patterns, or sterility. The results also show that contraceptive use has its greatest suppressing effects in the middle and younger age groups. However, in Kenya, the dominant fertility inhibiting effect is postpartum infecundability, with contraception coming in second.

Prospects for fertility reduction and projections for future population growth in Kenya

In 1979 Kenya's annual rate of natural population growth was 3.8%. Data from the1989 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey indicate that significant decreases in fertility levels were experienced during the 1980s. Factors associated with conditions supportive of high fertility in Kenya are discussed, and progress toward attaining significant fertility reduction thresholds during the 1980s is assessed. Findings from recent fertility surveys are presented, and 1969–1989 national level family planning data are evaluated. Four population projections for 1985–2025 are presented and analyzed. One projection is based on official government growth targets; two are based on estimates provided by the United Nations and the Population Reference Bureau, and a fourth projection is based on the assumption that Kenya will attain an annual natural population growth rate of less than 1% by the year 2025. Each projection assumes that fertility declines will be experienced. Kenya's prospects for reducing the annual population growth rate to 1% within the next sixty years and a cost-sharing development policy are addressed briefly in the concluding section. Recent data suggest that Kenya will probably not complete the demographic transition before the year 2050, but Kenya should continue to move through the transition stage.

Child Survival and Fertility in Kenya

Summary An-Margritt Jensen, ‘Child Survival and Fertility in Kenya’, Forum for Development Studies, No. 1, 1993, pp. 37–47. This article focuses on the interplay between child survival, fertility and acceptance of family planning in the case of Kenya. The issue is first discussed at an aggregate level, illustrating the regional differences in terms of fertility, child mortality and family planning usage in Kenya. In the last part of the article attention is given to the invididual level, discussing fertility and family planning among women who have, or have not, experienced to lose a child. In this section data from case studies on two areas, Western and Coast provinces, are employed. Both provinces have high levels of child mortality, while they differ in terms of fertility levels. Fertility rate in Western Province is much higher than in Coast Province. The article reveals that fertility in both areas is higher among women who have lost a child. The low fertility in Coast Province reflects that many women in this area suffer from sub-fecundity. Both child loss and sub-fecundity have negative impact on the use of modern contraceptives.

Kenya Enters the Fertility Transition

Contraceptive prevalence is rising and fertility is falling in Kenya, and the speed with which these changes are occurring suggests that Kenya has passed a turning point and entered a transition. In this paper the author explores these recent trends with data from the 1989 Kenya Demographic Health Survey and several other small-scale surveys and qualitative research studies. Underlying the changed contraceptive – fertility behaviour, there appears to have been a major shift in attitudes regarding desired family size. In the second part of the paper the earlier almost universally pessimistic predictions regarding fertility in Kenya, which now appear to have been wrong are considered. Since Kenya has emerged as a bellwether among sub-saharan African states, these earlier predictions are re-examined with a view to learning from their mistakes. It is concluded that incorrect theoretical paradigms and assumptions led to the erroneous results, rather more than incorrect data, or analysis.

Socio-economic factors affecting fertility in Kenya

Abstract This article is based on data from the Kenya Fertility Survey 1977f78. The article examines the socio-economic and cultural effects of both cumulative and recent fertility in Kenya using cross-tabulation analysis. The analysis has revealedmarkeddifferentials in fertility according to a woman's level of education. Women's education is also found to have a greater influence in restraining fertility than that of the husband. Women with S or moreyears of schooling, for instance, married to husbands of similaror a higher level of education have the smallestnumberof children. The fertility differential is even more marked according to rural-urban residence. Women residing in metropolitan centres (Nairobi and Mombasa) have markedly lower fertility than their counterparts in rural areas. Differentials in fertility according to other socio-economic factors, namelyresidential region, ethnic group and husband's occupation were not very apparent.

Trends and determinants of contraceptive use in Kenya

This study uses the 1977-1978 Kenya Fertility Survey and the 1989 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey to examine trends and determinants of contraceptive use in Kenya. A substantial increase in contraceptive use occurred in Kenya over the decade. Yet although the increase was shared by all groups in the country, the amount of change differed greatly. A regression decomposition procedure revealed that shifts in population composition — that is, an increase in better educated women and in the proportion of women who want to cease childbearing — were the primary sources of aggregate change in contraceptive use.

The effect of nuptiality status variables on fertility: the Kenyan experience.

"This paper examines the relationship between fertility and nuptiality in Kenya using data from the Kenya Fertility Survey 1977/78. The results show that completed fertility (the cumulative fertility at the end of the reproductive period 15-49) decreases with the rise in age at first marriage. Type of union is also found to affect marital stability, frequency of marriage and consequently completed fertility. Regardless of type of union, women whose first union is still continuing have higher fertility than those women whose first union was dissolved and who married once or several times after. Highest fertility is experienced by women married only once and...in monogamous unions. The results also show that polygamously married older women among the rural populations experience higher fertility than their counterparts in the urban areas regardless of age." (SUMMARY IN AFR)

Adolescent Sexuality and Fertility in Kenya: A Survey of Knowledge, Perceptions, and Practices

This article presents findings from a survey conducted in Kenya in 1985 of the reproductive health knowledge, attitudes, and practices among more than 3,000 unmarried Kenyan youth, students and nonstudents, between the ages of 12 and 19. The survey was designed to elicit information that would be useful in gauging the kinds of problems Kenyan adolescents face in order to design programs that meet their needs. The study shows that although a solid majority of adolescents appear to have received information on reproductive health, the quality of the information is generally low. Fewer than 8 percent could correctly identify the fertile period in a woman's menstrual cycle. A substantial proportion of the population surveyed, more than 50 percent, is sexually active, having initiated intercourse some time between 13 and 14 years of age, on average. In spite of a general disapproval of premarital sex (but approval of the use of contraceptives among the sexually active), most of the sexually active population--89 percent--have never used contraceptives. The many contradictions between attitudes and practices pose serious questions and demonstrate the need to reexamine the programs (and policies) that provide access to reproductive health services to adolescents in Kenya.

Evidence of a Transition to Lower Fertility in Kenya

Data from the 1989 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey provide evidence that the countrys population growth rate historically among the highest in the world has begun to slow. The total fertility rate in 1989 was 6.7 livebirths/woman down from 8.1 in the mid-1970s; most of this decline appears to have taken place in the past few years. Contraceptive prevalence has increased sharply with 27% of married women using a method up from 14% in 1984 and 6% during 1977-78. Periodic abstinence remains the most widely used method (7.5%) followed by the pill (5.2%) and female sterilization (4.7%). The survey suggests that the fertility decline is likely to continue. The average ideal family size in 1989 was 4.4 children down from 5.8 in 1984. 1/2 of the currently Kenyan women say they want no more children. In addition more than 1/2 of the recent births were either mistimed or unwanted. More than 1/3 of currently married women ages 15-49 are in need of family planning 22% for spacing and 14% for birth timing. (authors)

Trends and determinants of contraceptive use in Kenya

This study uses the 1977-1978 Kenya Fertility Survey and the 1989 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey to examine trends and determinants of contraceptive use in Kenya. A substantial increase in contraceptive use occurred in Kenya over the decade. Yet although the increase was shared by all groups in the country, the amount of change differed greatly. A regression decomposition procedure revealed that shifts in population composition--that is, an increase in better educated women and in the proportion of women who want to cease childbearing--were the primary sources of aggregate change in contraceptive use.

Determinants of cumulative fertility in Kenya.

This paper analyses the effects of age at first marriage, level of education, place of residence, marriage disruption, religion, contraceptive use, and work status on cumulative fertility in Kenya, using data from the 1977-78 Kenya Fertility Survey. Age at first marriage is the main determinant of cumulative fertility, but there are significant effects of level of education and marriage disruption. Place of residence is only significant for the Coast province. The implication of the findings is that to promote any real decline in fertility, emphasis should be placed on providing higher education and work opportunities for young women as an alternative to early marriage.