Over half of Namibia's unmarried women are already mothers, census shows
A 2023 census report reveals that over half of unmarried women in Namibia are mothers, indicating a shift in traditional family structures. The data highlights that marriage is no longer a prerequisite for childbearing in the country.
Why it matters
This demographic shift challenges traditional social norms and provides critical data for policymakers regarding education, employment, and family support systems.
More than half of Namibia’s women who have never married have given birth, according to the 2023 Population and Housing Census Fertility Report.
In the report, it has been found that 53.4% of women in Namibia who have never married were already mothers. The figure shows that women are no longer waiting to get married before having children.
||Kharas recorded the highest share of never-married women who are mothers, at 61.6%, while Kavango West had the lowest rate at 46%.
The proportion was almost identical in rural areas (53.7%) and urban areas (53.1%).
However, marriage is still linked to larger families. Married women had a total fertility rate of 6.7 children, compared with a rate of 3.5 children among never-married women.
The total fertility rate is the average number of children a woman would be expected to have over her lifetime.
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