International records / OpenAlex research

The meaning of contraceptive choice and constraint for Hausa women in a northern Nigerian town

Hausa women residing in the northern Nigerian town of Zaria have a range of traditional and modem contraceptive methods, as well as alternatives such as abortion, available to them for controlling fertility. Whether they actually avail themselves of these options, however, relates to the contemporaneous social, economic, political and religious context in which the meanings of contraceptive choice and constraint are constructed. For example, young, unmarried Hausa Muslim women attending secondary school are constrained by social conventions that both ostracise those with premarital pregnancies…