Determinants of Adolescent Fertility among Rural Women of Ethiopia

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to identify the factors that contribute to adolescent childbearing and to examine to what extent these factors influence adolescent fertility of women in rural Ethiopia. This study was based on 2510 adolescent fertility data of rural women aged 15 - 19 years that was extracted from the original women data of the 2011 Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS). Descriptive analysis, chi-square test and binary logistic analysis were employed. Hence, based on the result, religion, current contraceptive method use, woman educational level, wealth index were the most contributing risk factors for adolescent childbearing of women in rural Ethiopia. The risk of having children in adolescent years was greater for not educated women than those who had secondary or higher education. In addition, the chance of having a child in adolescent years for poor households’ women was higher than that of their counterparts. Hence strengthening poor households by designing different strategies can have better life and good decision maker about their adolescent childbearing.