Rural-Urban fertility differentials in Southern Nigeria: An assessment of some available evidence

The dearth of information on fertility in Nigeria has hitherto impeded efforts to arrive at a consistent pattern of rural-urban fertility differentials in Nigeria. Attempts were made from the mid-sixties onwards to analyse the pattern of rural-urban fertility differentials in some parts of Southern Nigeria from a few independent sources. One such attempt was made by Olusanya; in his study of Western Nigeria in 1966 and in 1969 he reported a higher urban than rural fertility for that region. This result was supported by Ekanem on the basis of data from his 1972 survey of parts of Eastern Nigeria. Given the relatively wider range of available data presently available for Southern Nigeria, this paper examines the Olusanya - Ekanem data together with recent statistics collected from Western, Mid-Western, and Eastern parts of Nigeria by other workers and points out certain inconsistencies and contradictions in the data and conclusions of Olusanya and Ekanem. It suggests that the bulk of available evidence to date suggests either that there is a trend towards the convergence of rural-urban fertility or a definite pattern of higher fertility in the countryside than in the towns. The conclusion also discusses some technical problems of comparing urban and rural fertility. © 1980 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.