Fertility differential of women in Bangladesh demographic and health survey 2014

The aim of this study was to examine the fertility differential of women age 15 to 49 using data from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2014- a survey of women who were born from 1963 to 1999.

The secondary data analysis was carried out using the BDHS 2014 in order to discuss differences in childbearing practices in Bangladesh. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data including education level, geographic location, and religion. A trend test used to assess the inferences.

On average, women had 2.3 children in the BDHS 2014; more than 90% of them gave birth to at least one child by age 49 and the average age of first birth was 18 years. Fertility of women strongly differed by education (p < 0.001). The percentage of women with secondary education who had no child was 50.3% and never attended school 8.4%;those with secondary education were six times as likely as those who never attended school to have no child and this pattern was stronger among urban compared with rural women.

Fertility differential becomes robust as education increases. Women's fertility is also related to religion and residence, but these factors were not strongly related as those educational attainments.