Armed Conflict and Early Childbearing: A Spatiotemporal Analysis of Conflict Exposure and Adolescent Fertility in Nigeria, 1997-2024

Victor Emmanuel , University of St Andrews
Emmanuel Olamijuwon, University of St Andrews
Jo Mhairi Hale, University of St Andrews

Nigeria has experienced protracted armed conflicts over the past three decades, including the militancy, Boko Haram insurgency, farmer-herder clashes, and banditry. These conflicts have disrupted educational and health systems, displaced populations, and altered family formation, all of which are critical determinants of fertility. This study uses spatiotemporal analysis to investigate how exposure to armed conflict shapes adolescent fertility outcomes in Nigeria. We link georeferenced Armed Conflict Location and Event Data from 1997 to 2024 with five waves of the Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys (NDHS). Based on systematic reviews of conflict-demographic studies, we identify three key methodological limitations: arbitrary selection of buffer zones, high fatality thresholds that exclude low-intensity conflicts, and fixed temporal windows that overlook developmental trajectories. We develop a multidimensional exposure index that incorporates three components: spatial decay (using inverse distance weighting, where conflicts closer to clusters have stronger effects), conflict intensity (weighting events by fatalities and severity), and cumulative burden (capturing how violence accumulates over time, rather than treating incidents separately). We employ Multilevel Modelling (MLM) and survival analysis to examine the relationship between conflict exposure and adolescent fertility outcomes. The MLM account for clustering at the NDHS cluster level and includes individual and community-level covariates. Survival analysis models time to first birth, incorporating time-varying conflict exposure to capture how violence at different adolescent ages influences fertility timing. Expected findings include positive associations between conflict exposure and early childbearing, primarily due to educational disruption and a substantial variation in conflict effects by violence type and geographic context.

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 Presented in Session P69. Environment, Conflicts and Population Dynamics