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| Demography of Children and its Implications on Government Planning and Policies: Periscoping Enugu State. |
Dr. A.T Aduma, Prof. Emma E.O. Chukwuemeka
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Abstract:
Birth registration affords every child the opportunity to be captured in the birth data base and the child’s nationality established. It affords the government the opportunity also to know the demography of children in a given country which helps them to plan towards children friendly policies. This study investigates therefore the level of child birth registration accomplishment in Enugu State Nigeria and how that will help government’s financial planning and policies concerning children in the state. Survey research design was used to accomplish this task. Selected health centers across the three senatorial zones of the state were visited and birth registration data collected from their records. Questionnaire, face-to-face interview and focus group discussion were tools used for data collection. The senior staff of the Ministry of Health Enugu State and Planning managers of the Health centers were interviewed with a view to eliciting data from them. Two hypotheses were formulated as a guide to the study and tested using Pearson Moment Correlation co-efficient Analysis. With the support of hospital records, records from National Bureau of Statistics alongside the result of the hypotheses tested, the study revealed that there is low registration of birth in Enugu State which ultimately affects government’s ability to plan accurately towards the welfare of children in the state. The paper recommends a bio-data of birth that links all hospitals with the Ministry of Health and National Population Commission to keep track of birth registration in the state. This will help government to formulate child friendly policies based on accurate data of children related demography.
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