Kenyan Educated Women Get Few Children

Women with higher levels of education tend to have fewer children, the 2011 Kenya Population Data Sheet says.

“Women with no education have an average of more than twice as many children as those who attended secondary school or higher,” reads part of the report.

Women with no education had an average of 6.7 children compared to women who at least attended secondary school and beyond who bear an average of 3.1 children.

One out five married women use the injectable contraception compared to other family planning methods.

Among married women aged 15 to 49, 46 per cent use family planning with seven per cent of them opting to use the pill.

“Nearly one out of 10 married women use the longer acting or permanent methods of intrauterine devices, implants and female sterilisation,” the report cites.

According to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, only an estimated 39 per cent of people living in towns are using contraceptives largely because they are unaware of family planning options, lack access or are influenced by myths on the methods.

The poorest women were found to have the highest unmet need for family planning.

Ensuring access to family planning can prevent unintended pregnancies and thereby reduce unintended pregnancies and child mortality.

The report also notes that even among wealthy ones, nearly one out of five married women has an unmet need for family planning.

Population growth has been singled out as the key contributing factor to reduced arable land per capita available to rural farmers and their children.

And two of every three farmers believe the land they own is insufficient for their children, the 2011 Kenya Population Data Sheet says.

The chief executive of Kenya Land Alliance, Mr Odenda Lumumba, said in a telephone interview the problem stemmed from land fragmentation.

“We have seen land being subdivided into very uneconomical sizes that one cannot do anything with it,” said Mr Lumumba.

Two areas that are most affected, according to him, are Kisii and Maragoli in Vihiga.

Mr Lumumba takes issue with the subdivision even in towns for construction, saying people often locate houses from road to road or boundary to boundary.

“The new Constitution only provides that Parliament will legislate the minimum and maximum acreage a private person can hold.

Only the Agricultural Land Act puts a cap at the minimum acreage arable land can be divided into at 4.5 acres.”