A Comparative Analysis of the Effects of Fertility on Women’s Employment in Urban and Rural Areas of Cameroon

Abstract

This paper compares the effects of fertility on women’s employment in Urban and Rural areas of Cameroon using pulled data from the 1991, 1998, 2004, 2011 and 2018 Demographic Health Survey (DHS) for Cameroon. The Logistic Regression, Fairlie and Multivariate decomposition models were used for analyses. The logistics regression results showed that fertility has a positive and statistically significant effect on women’s employment in Cameroon. The fairlie decomposition results showed that fertility, primary education, being in the richer and richest wealth level, husband’s being in primary education, being a Muslim and husband being in agricultural-self-employment all significantly reduced the differences in women’s employment in urban and rural areas. On the other hand, secondary and tertiary educational level for husband and wife, poorer and middle-income wealth group, being a Catholic, husband’s working in the agricultural sector, marriage, age at first cohabitation and being resident in urban areas all significantly increased the differences between women’s employment in the urban and rural areas. The Multivariate decomposition results showed that the largest significant contributor to differences in women’s employment in urban and rural areas of Cameroon was fertility. Fertility significantly increased the differences in women’s employment in urban and rural zones by 19.2%. The promotion of women’s employment in the urban areas through the subsidization of day-care, services and the provision of start up capital is recommended.