Shrinking size of families blamed on economy

…As citizens place premium on education of their children, quality life

In 2019, a senior immigration officer who went for a colleague’s mother’s burial in Uvuru, Aboh Mbaise, Imo State, was speechless when 10 children of the dead woman filed out in white mourning uniform.

You mean 10, how did she raise them all? He asked rhetorically. He later learnt that they were 12 children, sadly two died. But the intrigue for him was how one mother will go through 12 births and still be willing to have more if the husband insists and nature permits.

Well, those were the days when large family size mattered and when women, particularly in Mbaise were celebrated for having 12 children.

Today, the reverse is the case as none of the dead woman’s children had above three children.

Read also: Nigeria’s economy turning the corner, but citizens still trapped in hardship

Taiwo and Kehinde Oguntoye, the Oyo State-born Oguntoye twins, who organise the annual Igbo-Ora World Twins Festival on October 9th of every year, also confirmed the reverse.

There are about 158 twins per 1,000 newborns in Igbo-Ora, compared to five twins per 1,000 newborns in Europe. But while the above makes Igbo-Ora, Ibarapa Central Local government Area in Oyo State, the twins capital of the world, the Oguntoye twins observed that family size is not as large as before despite the multiple births as Oyo people value education and parents are beginning to limiting births to the number they can cater for.

Amarachi Ozoenyi, an Ikeja Lagos-based pediatric doctor and family planning consultant, insisted that the era of large family size is gone and will not return even if the economy booms because it does not support modern living, safe parenting and especially, the economic realities of today.

“I was born 58 years ago when many parents went after large family size for farm work and bragging rights. We were eight girls and my father had two more girls and three boys from a second wife. Sadly, I was married off at 17, but my husband sent me to school. I have just two boys, but I would have become a baby-making machine if my husband did not cherish education and child spacing,” the doctor noted.

Though a few are still having more children, she noted that the average family size in Nigeria is now three, with more preferring two, especially a boy and a girl, all because of the realities of the time.

“Things are very hard and will not get better soon. Have you asked the price of baby milk and pampers? Have you also asked about the bills for safe baby delivery and cost of cesarean section?

The above, according to her, are top among the reasons marriage is no longer an in-thing for young people these days, as well as large family size for young couples.

Aminat Alatise, a senior matron at Isolo General Hospital, Lagos, noted that these days, young wives, including her daughters, are scared of pregnancy, with some insisting on cesarean section, CS, for delivery and adoption if the husband approves.

“Some time ago, a mother of three came to our hospital for antenatal care with her third baby of about one year and two months. I wasn’t the one shouting but her fellow mothers.

“All I did was to put her through on why she does not need more children and how she can still enjoy sex without necessarily becoming pregnant. I do a lot of that these days because the women are the ones bearing the brunt and they need to understand that though children are gifts from God, having fewer of them elongates the life of the mother. Also, having more children that you cannot cater for is abusing God’s gift,” she said.

Read also: Why hardship still persist in Nigeria despite ‘stable’ economy – Yemi Kale

Apart from today’s harsh economic realities, the senior matron blamed the shrinking family size to a mind-shift among mothers that children are not necessarily God’s gift, but responsibilities of the parents, hence having the few you can cater for is the ultimate thing.

She also noted that many young wives are now opting for family planning unlike before, and have been able to control their child birth a great deal through that.

“With family planning you and your husband can do your thing without fear of pregnancy and will have your baby anything you stop it. It is not only for the working-class women, even petty traders are doing it because they are the ones that often don’t know they are pregnant again,” she explained.

But Bassey Ikpeme, a young civil servant, who commutes daily from his Gwagwalada base to his office at the National Secretariat Abuja, noted that the harsh economy is the major reason for the shrinking family size in Nigeria today.

From courtship, to marriage, to expecting the first baby and to raising a family, Ikpeme noted they are all huge financial projects, which the jobless cannot dare.

“Those who don’t have money cannot think of marriage and those in poorly-paid jobs are also scared of spending the money they don’t have. Another worry is that the fees charged by some creches and primary schools in Abuja are more than the salaries of some civil servants.

“In my case, I managed to get a job at a federal ministry, but many of my university mates are still jobless and single. Even with the new minimum wage, raising a family now requires huge funds, and that is why some of my friends now prefer to be baby papa’s. They said that it is cheaper,” he said.

Toeing Ikpeme’s lane, Femi Dada, a media executive, decried that the old-good-days often talked about by the older generation have eluded the present generation and probably the ones to come, hence the realities of the time are what majorly determine how people live today, including limiting the number of children, quality of education and accommodation to what the harsh economy permits.

“We all aspire for a good life, quality education and living in highbrow areas. But those are mere wishes going by the economic realities of today.

“Those who buy baby food today, buy pampers, pay creche, school fees, house rent and often see their pediatrician will not allow their temporary pleasure to deceive them, rather the economic realities to guide them.

“Even the rich are crying and further reducing their family size, why then will a struggling guy like me opt for three or four children. I have just one boy and that is enough, though madam wants a girl,” he noted.

While the above has negatively impacted family size today, Chibuike Onuorah, a Port Harcourt-based lawyer, decried that the rising rate of divorce, ‘baby papa’ and ‘baby mama’ syndrome and all manner of things on the social media have not helped either, amid the instability of marriages that results in less children as couples keep walking in and out of marriage at will.

“Everybody wants a celebrity wedding, and celebrities don’t want children or family responsibilities. I handled one case in 2022 where a young wife wanted divorce because her husband was insisting on their having a baby now instead of later as they agreed before the marriage. Her reason is that she will lose her glamorous body shape once the baby comes, while the husband fears that she may not be able to have a baby later,” the lawyer said.

With all the negative things, stories of divorce, gory tales of wife battering, wives and husbands killed by their spouses, among others, the youth, according to Onuorah, are rethinking marriage and those in marriage are very careful, especially of having children that will suffer if the marriage fails tomorrow.

“There is a mind-shift and a different attitude to marriage and raising a home now. People are cautious and not giving their all in marriage nowadays and it is affecting their commitment to each other and family size. The older couples are talking, but the younger ones are not listening,” he said.

Cynthia Anyanwu, a professor and mother of five, attributed the shrinking family size to largely the harsh economic realities, while insisting that efforts in the past to reduce family size through policies did not work due to traditional and religious beliefs, which are fast giving way now because of the harsh economic realities.

Anyanwu recalled that during the administration of Ibrahim Babangida between 1985-1993, when Nigeria’s population was about 114 million, there was an effort by the then military government to reduce the average family size from six to four children, but the policy failed due to lack of enforcement.

“It failed due to lack of enforcement, but it is even working better now without enforcement due to the harsh economy, which has persisted from military to civilian government.

“My mother had seven of us, I have five and they all had two children and two had one each. This is across the country, even the polygamous and the poorest of the poor are adjusting because Nigeria has become a harsh environment and everyone is bearing his or her cross. Women groups, family planning, hospitals and social groups are also helping with sustained campaigns for smaller family size,” she said.

Though there are still some places like in the northern part of the country where large family size is still fashionable, the professor noted that generally Nigerians are having fewer children, despite the increasing population, when compared with the generation past.

In her conclusion, Ozoenyi thinks that the shrinking family size will continue and is following global trends as the world has become a global village.

“At a point, people will start having just one child per couple not just because of the harsh economy because there might be a boom tomorrow, but maybe to control the population as China and India are doing presently,” she concluded.

Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date