Determinants of the Desire to Stop Childbearing among Women in Southern Ghana: Parity Progression, Partner Effects and Situational Factors

Ivy A. Kodzi, Pennsylvania State University
David Johnson, Pennsylvania State University

Fertility limitation may be driven by the achievement of family size targets. Since each child is born at a different stage of the life course, however, fertility preferences may also be influenced by past reproductive, social, economic experiences and perceptions about the future. In this study, the determinants of the desire to stop childbearing were analyzed, using individual-level longitudinal data on the reproductive lives of a sample of women in southern Ghana. Using a fixed-effects logit regression technique, we modeled the impact of reproductive life cycle events, health experiences, perceptions of future household economic conditions, and spousal interactions on a woman’s preference to stop childbearing. We learned that women are most likely to want to stop childbearing at the normative ideal family size of four children. Declining health, perceptions of spousal preference conflict and economic concerns are also significant determinants of the desire to limit births.