Factors Influencing Women’s Employment Status and Fertility Preferences among Married Women in South-South Region of Nigeria Iheyinwa Chidinma Salami, Muyiwa Oladosu, Ph.D. Department of Economics and Development Studies Covenant University Ota, Nigeria. milasaify2014@gmail.com, muyiwa.oladosun@cu.edu.ng Abstract—Evidence from the literature show that in developed countries where considerable proportion of women participate in the labor force, total fertility and population growth rate are considerably low. This is in sharp contrast to most less developed countries like Nigeria where women’s involvement in the labor force is low, and total fertility and growth rate are both consistently high. This study examines the relationships between factors influencing the relationships between women’s involvement in the labour force and fertility preferences with focus on south-south region of Nigeria. The study employed the 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) data sets. Analysis applied univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analytical techniques. Preliminary results show that current working status of women in the region vary significantly by age, education, no of co-wives, state of residence, and age at first sex of the respondents (p-values = 0.000). Other factors with positive significant association with current work status are; religion (p-value = 0.034), and wealth index (p-value = 0.030). Earnings of women in the south-south region of the country were significantly associated with age, residence, education, religion, wealth index state of residence, and age at first sex (p-values = 0.000). These results have importance significance for policy and programmes geared to increase women’s labour market involvement in Nigeria. The results from the multivariate analysis showed that policy makers and programmers need to consider variations and differences in state of residence, education, wealth status, and number of co-wives when designing tailor made programmes for these subgroups in the region. Keywords—women participation, labour force, current working status, and earning of women I. INTRODUCTION Evidence shows that high fertility has adversely influenced the socio- economic, demographic, and environmental development of developing countries such as Nigeria [4]. Given the country’s total fertility rate (TFR) of 5.5%; one of the highest in the world, [17], there is no signal that a sustainable decline is visible soon. It is therefore imperative to further appreciate the forces underlying the fertility situation in the country. Labour Force Participation of women among other factors is identified as a significant predictor of fertility [14].The literature show that in developed countries considerable proportion of women participate in the labour force, with attendant low total fertility and population growth rate compared to most developing countries where low proportion of women participate in the labour force and fertility is high There are considerable untapped benefits of women labour force participation that Nigeria is yet to tap into. S. P. Tsani, L. Paroussos, S. Fragiadakis, I. Charalambidis, and P. Capros, P, (2012) argues that women human capital is underutilized both at the national and global levels in many countries. In Nigeria, female labour force participation increased from 36% in 1990 to 39% in 2009 [22]. Although the increase of 3% is small, it did not have any appreciable effect on total fertility in the country. In the more industrialized societies, an inverse association between various measures of fertility among economically active and inactive women appears to have been more consistent than in the less developed societies. In the less developed societies, the nature of the relationship tends to vary with conditions and sectors of employment and it might be sufficient to note that research findings from Nigeria and some other African countries indicate that the relationship between female work and fertility is far from being consistent, varying from positive to negative, and from significant to no- significant relationships [20]. Even in the face of modernization, many people in developing countries still hold on to the view that the woman’s place should be in the kitchen and therefore it is non-traditional for women to engage in paid jobs outside the home. The implication of this is that the rate at which women participate in the labour force is dictated by societal norms and stereotypes [12]. Therefore, in this paper we attempt to show that critically examining the factors influencing women’s employment status and not just employment itself, provides a potentially better method of understanding and measuring the impact of female employment on fertility preference. This has become pertinent because it has been argued that it is not labour force participation per se which affects fertility but a series of other variables associated with labour force participation such as age, longer period of schooling, age at first sex, religion, residence, ethnicity etc. [5]. Hence, this paper attempts to examine the relationship between factors influencing women’s 511 3rd International Conference on African Development Issues (CU-ICADI 2016) ISSN:2449-075X Copyright © 2016 by Covenant University Press