Community context and third parity among ever-married women in Bangladesh: Insights from a nationally representative survey

Abstract

Despite a significant decline in fertility over the past 30 years, Bangladesh’s total fertility rate has stalled at 2.3 since 2011, indicating a period of stagnation in reproductive behavior. This situation raises important questions about the role of community-level factors, which may be critical but remain underexplored as determinants of the failure to reach replacement-level fertility. The present study investigates how various community-level and individual-level factors influence the transition to third parity among ever-married women in Bangladesh, utilizing comprehensive data from the 2022 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey. The analysis reveals that families with more than two children significantly impact third birth rates, particularly in communities with a high prevalence of larger families, where the rate reaches an alarming 76.5%. Furthermore, community-level illiteracy and poverty demonstrate complex effects on birth intervals, with higher levels of these factors associated with an increased likelihood of third births. To identify the key determinants influencing the timing of third births, we employed the Cox proportional hazards model, estimating parameters using the maximum likelihood approach. The findings indicate that community characteristics, especially the prevalence of larger families, significantly increase the hazard of transitioning from second to third births, with hazard ratios ranging from 1.55 to 4.01 across different models. Other important determinants include age at first marriage, educational attainment, and exposure to mass media, underscoring the intricate relationships between socioeconomic factors and reproductive behavior. These results highlight the crucial need for targeted interventions that consider community characteristics to effectively influence fertility decisions.

Keywords

Parity progression / Birth interval / Community factors / Bangladesh / Hazard model

Funding

None.

Conflict of interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

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