Policy implications of the effects of some indicators of women's status on fertility in Tanzania: a case of Zanzibar

This work is an attempt to study some indicators of women 's status as they relate to women 's general fertility behaviour and the possible policy bearings of the studied relationship. The main objectives are to establish relationship between women's fertility behaviour and some socio-economic and demographic indicators of women 's status in Zanzibar and come out with possible policy implications of the obtaining relationship. The study is organized in four chapters .the abstract is followed by chapter one which has given a background to the problem, statement of the problem, literature review, conceptual framework and hypotheses. Chapter two describes the methodology used in facilitating the research. It describes the area of study, the sampling procedure, methods used in acquiring the data, type and nature of variables, method of analysis and the limitations of the study. Data were collected on women in childbearing ages ( 15 to 49 years) with experience of at least one live birth. From this effort l, 616 cases were available for analysis: 488 cases from urban and 1,128 from rural areas. These were used in descriptive and regression analyses. The findings are presented, interpreted and analysed in Chapter three, the chapter begins with a broad picture of the educational context, as studied from documentary sources, then a presentation of the general demographic characteristics of the study population. this part is followed by summaries of socio-economic and demographic indicators of the population, followed by regression and qualitative analyses. the last part gives the possible implications of the findings on population and public development policy. The findings in this work are precipitates of both quantitative statistical analysis of data gathered on the indicators of women's status; namely education, occupation, age at first marriage and place of residence; and qualitative analysis of views gathered from in depth study discussions. The plain findings are that education is central in explaining and promoting women's status whether high or low. Education cuts accross all other indicators occupation (where education is high employment in modern sector jobs and the implied higher income and exposition to aspects of modernization are more likely to be a result ) , and place of residence, whereby education recourses are better deployed in urban areas than in rural areas. Type of occupation is found to have a weak and an unexpected coefficient in relation to fertility behavior. It is found to be a poor indicator of women's status and hence fertility behaviour for Zanzibar die to the united chances of employment in the modern sector. Qualitative analysis has portrayed that the socio-cultural context is essentially patriarchal. Women 's status and the related high fertility norm find explanation in patriarchal cum religious culture which is firmly entrenched throughout the isles. The obtaining policy implications in Chapter four have emphasized further integration of evocation, with pronounced emphasis on women's enrollment and sustenance to at least form three education; and the expansion of literacy classes to capture dropouts who are already too old to go back to primary school. Lastly, policy initiatives need to promote more resources that will enhance researches in contextually relevant options to improve the status of women and their respective fertility behaviour. Researchers should also explore the causes of low motivation and related high dropouts from schools and its possible solution( s). Further research is also recommended to explore more of the other indicators of women' s status and their fertility and policy connotations. The work ends with a resume of the findings and policy discussions. It closes with a few concluding remarks for future research.