FERTILITY BEHAVIOR OF THE CHILDLESS WOMEN IN BANGLADESH

M A Islam, S M Sayem and M A Khatun
Journal of the Sylhet Agricultural University, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2014, Pages 95-98

Abstract:

Fertility has been one of the major issues of population policies in Bangladesh. Currently married women who are still childless have different demographic characteristics and reproductive health conditions. Much can be done in terms of family planning and reproductive health targets if the characteristics of this group is well understood. This paper explores the fertility behavior of the childless women in Bangladesh using Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2007 dataset. Among 10,146 surveyed currently married women 11% (n=1,112) reported to have no children. Most of these women (88.7%) were aged less than 30 years. Among the childless women 59.4% were fecund, 27.1% were currently pregnant and the rest were in-fecund or at menopausal stage. Among the childless women 18.9% were currently using contraception and another 14.5% reported to have unmet need for contraception. Overall 54% childless women had desire to have children within two-year time. About 76% of the respondents preferred 2 children family norm. About 11% of the childless currently married women had experience of either pregnancy loss or termination. Two binary logistic regression models were fitted to explore the determinants of ‘current use of contraception’ and ‘unmet need for contraception’. Finally, the research suggests important policy recommendations.

Keywords:

Childless women, fertility, logistic regression


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M A Islam, S M Sayem and M A Khatun. 2014. FERTILITY BEHAVIOR OF THE CHILDLESS WOMEN IN BANGLADESH, Journal of the Sylhet Agricultural University 1(1): 95-98.