Ghanaian Women's Community Empowerment and Ideal Family Sizes

• In Event: 30821 - Open Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 13

Abstract

Although women’s empowerment is believed to promote fertility decline in developing countries, there has been relatively little research on whether women's community empowerment affects their reproductive behavior in African settings. This study used data from the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys to determine if women's empowerment at the district level affects ideal family sizes of individual women in an African country. The results show that in districts where Ghanaian women’s educational attainment converged on that for men, individual women’s ideal family sizes are lower, regardless of their personal and domestic characteristics. The results of this study provide support for efforts to rein in high fertility in Africa by increasing women’s access to education.

Author

• Kofi D. Benefo, CUNY-Lehman College