Family size and quality of life nexus; case of Sunyani municipality

Jones Lewis Arthur, Sunyani Polytechnic

The 1996 population policy of Ghana underlies the various drives to increasing population as well as modes for ensuring a manageable population size. The rational of the policy was to motivate and empower ministries, departments and assemblies to actively pursue policies towards acceptable family sizes thereby providing a platform for investigation into the family sizes. The research examines the major drives to choice of family sizes as well as the socio-economic implications of such a choice. The study involved a review and analysis of available literature on population in the Sunyani Municipality as well as Ghana. The communities in the Municipality were grouped into three strata that is, modern, semi-modern and deprived. It was identified that majority of the people in the Sunyani Municipality have small family sizes of less that five children. Choice of family size in the Municipality was identified to have been largely determined by contraceptive usage, sex preference of children and income levels. People with small family sizes were identified to be mainly in good health. It was recommended that family planning education should be actively pursued by relevant organizations including and not limited to the National Population Council, Sunyani Municipal Assembly (DA), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Community-Based Organization (CBOs). This would be required to discourage people from having large family sizes in the Sunyani Municipality. More so, people should be made, through education, of the adverse effects of giving birth to more children.