Parental Education and Children Ever Born Among Women in Bangladesh: Evidence From a Nationally Representative Survey

Fertility is a key determinant of population growth and overall population size. Bangladesh's total fertility rate has declined from about 6.3 births per woman in the mid-1970s to 2.3 in 2022, which is around the replacement level and, by some recent estimates, slightly below it. Yet the country remains among the world's most densely populated, and population momentum will sustain growth for decades. Understanding how parental education is associated with fertility, therefore, remains crucial for population and reproductive health policy.

This cross-sectional study analyzed 3839 ever-married women aged 15-49 years from the nationally representative Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2022. The outcome was the number of children ever born (CEB). Because the counts were underdispersed, a mean-parameterized Conway-Maxwell-Poisson regression model, selected over the Poisson and generalized Poisson models by Akaike Information Criteria (AIC) and Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC), was fitted with BDHS sampling weights, adjusting for relevant sociodemographic characteristics.

Maternal education showed a strong, graded inverse association with CEB. Compared with women with no education, mothers with primary (incidence rate ratio [IRR]: 0.95; 95% CI: 0.91-0.99), secondary (IRR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.83-0.91), and higher education (IRR: 0.72; 95% CI: 0.68-0.77) had significantly fewer CEB. Paternal education was similarly associated with lower fertility: Compared with fathers with no education, those with secondary (IRR: 0.94; 95% CI: 0.91-0.97) and higher education (IRR: 0.92; 95% CI: 0.88-0.97) had fewer children. Region, residence, wealth, maternal employment, religion, and desire for more children were also significantly associated with CEB.

Parental education, particularly maternal education, is strongly and consistently associated with lower fertility in Bangladesh. Although the cross-sectional design precludes causal inference, the findings suggest that strengthening educational opportunities, expanding access to reproductive health information and family planning services, and addressing socioeconomic disparities may help consolidate Bangladesh's fertility transition.