Exploration of the health and socio-economic impacts of large family size and population growth in selected states of Northern Nigeria

Dada, SO ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9678-1459, 2025. Exploration of the health and socio-economic impacts of large family size and population growth in selected states of Northern Nigeria. PhD, Nottingham Trent University.

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Abstract

Family size and population growth have been shown to impact the global disease burden and contribute to underdevelopment. The increase in Nigeria's population rate, particularly in the northern region, informed this research, which explored the health and socio-economic impacts of large family size and population growth in Northern Nigeria.

Using the Socio-ecological Model (SEM) and Silences Framework (SF) theoretical underpinnings, this study adopted an exploratory qualitative design. A total of 80 participants, including community members, traditional and religious stakeholders, healthcare professionals, and policymakers, were interviewed. The inductive thematic method, guided by the third stage of the SF, was used for data analysis.

Emerged findings indicated that cultural, traditional, and religious beliefs are the primary drivers of large family sizes and population growth in Northern Nigeria. From the participants' perspectives, other determinants included poverty, lack of education and empowerment, large family size for political negotiation, and having many children as cheap labour for farming. The increased levels of insecurity, banditry, criminality, malnutrition, food insecurity, illiteracy, economic hardship, poverty, street begging, underdevelopment, and environmental effects (pollution, overcrowding and migration) were the reported impacts of large family size and population growth. There were views that large family size and population growth could increase the workforce and enhance the nation's productivity if there was adequate investment in human capital development. Meanwhile, there was a general negative attitude towards the use of contraceptives and family planning services.

This study contributes to existing knowledge on the impacts of large family size and population growth in Northern Nigeria from the SEM and SF theoretical underpinnings. Findings suggested the need to engage available social structures in the co-production of family planning interventions and population control activities. It also provided a framework to guide interventions toward addressing and managing the impact of population growth in Nigeria and other African countries.

Item Type:	Thesis
Creators:	Dada, S.O.
Contributors:	Name Role NTU ID ORCID Nyashanu Thesis supervisor SWK3NYASHM https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9231-0393 Jidong Thesis supervisor PSY3JIDOND https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5034-0335
Date:	September 2025
Rights:	This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfilment of Nottingham Trent University's requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree. I agree that any re-use of the information obtained from this thesis should not be published without the author's and the University's express prior permission, consent and referencing. Any requests or queries for any other use of this thesis for any purpose, or if a more substantial copy is required for further research or publication, should be directed to the author. The author owns the Intellectual Property Rights of this work.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	19 Dec 2025 15:54
Last Modified:	19 Dec 2025 15:54
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54903

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