Employment in Large-Scale Agricultural Investment (Lai) and Fertility Intention among Women of Reproductive Age in Ethiopia, the Case of Saudi-Star and Merti Agricultural Farms
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Date
2020-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Fertility is an important component of population dynamics which plays a major role in the size
and structure of a given population. Uncontrolled fertility has adversely influenced the socioeconomic, demographic and environmental development of the country. Ethiopia is one of the most
populous countries in Africa, which suffers from direct and indirect population problems. The total
fertility rate (TFR) is 4.6 children per woman and under five mortality rates 59 per 1000 live births.
This paper investigates the impact of female employment in large scale agricultural investment on
fertility in two areas Sawdi-star agricultural investment and Merti agricultural investment
Gambella and Oromia region respectively in Ethiopia.
There were 375 and 461 women resides in adjacent to large scale agricultural investment (LAI)
and far away from large scale agricultural investment (LAI) respectively selected using simple
random sampling method. The hypothesis that female employed by large scale agricultural
investment (LAI) may lower fertility rates address this question empirically using household survey
data and SPSS Version 20 binary logistic regression techniques were used to analyze the data.
Finding is that 64.1 percent (537 women) are employed in large scale agricultural investment,
31.5% of whom would prefer to have a child. Whereas 33.4% woman who are not employed would
prefer to have a child, showing the proportion of women who desire to have an additional child
being lower for employed women compared to the unemployed. It is also found that, the average
desired number of children of women who live in far away from large scale agricultural investment
(LAI) areas of Ethiopia was 1.606 higher than women who lives in adjacent to it. This shows that
women employment in large scale agricultural investment (LAI) have a significant negative effect
on fertility rates. Being involved in economic activity is a real option and can therefore impact
upon their reproductive life; Greater involvement of women in the labour force is the reason for
fertility decline woman within large scale agricultural investment (LAI). These findings illustrate
how important it is to consider social gender-specific roles in order to accurately determine the
influence of female employment on reproductive life. Measures are taken to decrease fertility status
besides promoting child survival with expanding interventions to reduce the high fertility rate
through child health services in large scale agricultural investment (LAI), is recommended.
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Keywords
Fertility; women‟s employment; fertility intention; agricultural investment; Saudi Star Agricultural Development Farm; Merti Agricultural Development Farm