SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC DETERMINANTS OF INDUCED ABORTION AMONG WOMEN IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Abortion is being committed on a daily basis in Nigeria despite the restrictive abortion law placed by the government. Abortion constitutes severe danger to a woman’s health and it is safe for the woman only if it is performed by a specialist. From previous studies, it has been revealed that several factors has been responsible for the practice of abortion by women in Nigeria such as education, fear of having a child outside wedlock and also the fear of been labeled by the society as loosed. This study seeks to examine the social demographic determinants that tends to influence the practice of induced abortion by women in Nigeria, in order to achieve this aim, this study made use of the 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) women recode dataset with a sample size of 27,788 women that are either married, divorced or single (never married). Three levels of analysis (univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis) were employed to test for the relationship between social demographic characteristics of respondents and their practice of induced Abortion. Findings from this study revealed that the sociodemographic characteristics of respondents such as education, occupation, contraceptive use etc, plays a significant role or has an influence on the practice of induced abortion, this study therefore recommends that the usage of contraceptives should be encouraged by the government in order to prevent unwanted pregnancy hence reducing the rate of abortion.