Family Planning Practice and Factors Influencing Family Size among Mwaghavul Ethnic Group of Plateau State

Abstract

This research was designed to look at family planning in relation to family size with a view to curtail population growth in Nigeria and Africa in general. The initial idea was to determine the relationship between family size and family planning, child-sex preference, family size determinant factors in relationship to family size. A well-self-structured questionnaire/interview was employed to elicit information from the sample respondents of 200 household from a random sampling technique among the Mwaghavul ethnic group. The data were subjected to chi-square statistical method, using SPSS V. 17.0 (SPSS.inc. Chicago. IL, USA) to analyse the result. The study revealed that family planning, child-sex preference and determinant factors of family size were found to be significant at P> 0.05 (95% confidence level. This shows that  the driving force to large family size has great effect in pushing population growth in all aspect, even though, family planning has contribute to child spacing to a great extend but not to reduce size of family. Family size is a complex issue to control in a society where religion, culture and education were tie to belief. However, it recommended that families be sanitised on the need to adapt to small size of family to mitigate the effect of large family.