AccScience Publishing / IJPS / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/ijps.5749
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Exploring the contribution of changes in nuptiality patterns to fertility transition among Ethiopian women

Dame Kedir1,2* Tariku Dejene1 Terefe Degefa1
Show Less
1 Center for Population Studies, College of Development Studies, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
2 Department of Mathematics, College of Applied Natural Science, Adama Science and Technology University, Adama, Ethiopia
Submitted: 1 November 2024 | Revised: 12 December 2024 | Accepted: 5 March 2025 | Published: 26 March 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Fertility changes in sub-Saharan Africa are intricately tied to the institution of marriage. In this context, marriage is often depicted as the primary framework for childbearing, reflecting deeply rooted cultural norms and societal expectations. A woman’s age at the first childbirth is crucial for shaping future life and is directly connected to her lifetime fertility. Despite the substantial body of research central to fertility in Ethiopia, the specific role of changes in the nuptiality patterns in driving lifetime fertility transitions has received comparatively less attention. To address this gap, this study utilized data from the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in 2000 and 2016. A Poisson-based multivariate decomposition for the non-linear response model was employed to identify, quantify, and decompose the changes in lifetime fertility over time. The lifetime fertility experienced a statistically significant decline between the two survey periods. Early marriage and marital instability are highly prevalent in Ethiopia. Marriage stability showed improvement in the two surveys. Regardless of early or late marriage, it contributes to an increase in lifetime fertility if showing stability and decreases lifetime fertility in the case of instability. The changes in nuptiality patterns have statistically significantly contributed to lifetime fertility transition. The observed statistically significant decline in lifetime fertility is primarily linked to the reduction in the average number of deceased children. Furthermore, women with no formal education, those with secondary or higher education, women from households with the poorest and middle wealth indices, and those residing in communities with high literacy levels were key contributors to the lifetime fertility transition. The complex and dynamic shifts in nuptiality patterns among women aged 35 and older, along with contraceptive use, contributed nearly equally to the lifetime fertility transition. Nuptiality patterns should be factored in the reproductive health policies and targeted interventions to the fluctuating nuptiality patterns. With an understanding of the complexities of nuptiality patterns and their contributions to fertility transitions, governments and non-governmental organizations can foster improved family planning and reproductive health outcomes.

Keywords
Nuptiality patterns
Lifetime fertility
Children ever born
Contraceptive
Decomposition analysis
Ethiopia
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
References

Alemu, M.B., Debie, A., Alemu, S.B., & Tessema, G.A. (2024). Residential and wealth-related disparities of high fertility preferences in Ethiopia: A decomposition analysis. PLoS One, 19(3):e0299443. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299443

 

Central Statistical Agency (CSA) [Ethiopia] and ICF. (2011). Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey. Addis Ababa, Rockville: CSA and ICF.

 

Central Statistical Agency (CSA) [Ethiopia] and ICF. (2016). Demographic and Health Survey Ethiopia. In: Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits, IPFA. https://doi.org/10.1109/ipfa.2004.1345625

 

Chernet, A.G., Shebeshi, D.S., & Banbeta, A. (2019). Determinant of time-to-first birth interval after marriage among Ethiopian women. BMC Women’s Health, 19(1):157. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-019-0858-3

 

CSA [Ethiopia] and ORC Macro. (2001). Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey 2000. Addis Ababa, Rockville: CSA and ORC Macro.

 

Daniel, A.P., & Myeong, S.Y. (2009). Multivariate decomposition for hazard rate models. American Sociological Association Journal, 15(2):9-25.

 

Erulkar, A. (2022). Changes in the prevalence of child marriage in Ethiopia, 2005-2016. Reproductive Health, 19(1):195. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12978-021-01234-4

 

Gatera, E. (2021). The demographic transition: Analysis of nuptiality component on change of fertility in Rwanda. Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis Studia Geographica, 16(1):99-116. https://doi.org/10.24917/20845456.16.6

 

Gazeta, F.N. (2000). The Revised Family Code of FDRE. Federal Negarit Gazetta, Extra Ordinary Issue No. 1.

 

Gündoğdu, A.H., & Bulut, S. (2022). The positive and negative effects of late marriage. Open Journal of Depression, 11(4):63-71. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojd.2022.114005

 

Hertrich, V. (2017). Trends in age at marriage and the onset of fertility transition in sub-Saharan Africa. Population and Development Review, 43(S1):112-137. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12043

 

ICF. (2018). Demographic and Health Surveys Standard Recode Manual. Washington, DC: United States United States Agency for International Development, p.145.

 

John, B.M., & Adjiwanou, V. (2022). Fertility decline in sub- Saharan Africa: Does remarriage matter? Population Studies, 76(2):213-233. https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2021.1933148

 

Karney, B.R., & Bradbury, T.N. (2020). Research on marital satisfaction and stability in the 2010s: Challenging conventional wisdom. Journal of Marriage and Family, 82(1):100-116. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12635

 

Kedir, D., Dejene, T., & Degefa, T. (2024). Components of changes in nuptiality patterns among Ethiopian women: A decomposition analysis of demographic and health surveys. International Journal of Population Studies, 14.

 

Kiser, H., & Hossain, M.A. (2019). Estimation of number of ever born children using zero truncated count model: Evidence from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey. Health Information Science and Systems, 7(1):3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13755-018-0064-y

 

Muhoza, D.N. (2022). Fertility transition in Rwanda: What does the trend in nuptiality reveal? Genus, 78(1):4. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41118-022-00152-y

 

N., D., & Simon, J.L. (2001). The effects of income on fertility. Population and Development Review, 1(2):329. https://doi.org/10.2307/1972244

 

Orwa, J., Gatimu, S.M., Ariho, P., Temmerman, M., & Luchters, S. (2023). Trends and factors associated with declining lifetime fertility among married women in Kenya between 2003 and 2014: An analysis of Kenya demographic health surveys. BMC Public Health, 23(1):718. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15620-z

 

Palameleni, M.E. (2011). Socioeconomic determinants of age at marriage in Malawi. International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 3(7):224-235.

 

Pandey, S., Singh, A., Awasthi, S., & Kaur, S. (2018). Construction of nuptiality tables for the hilly rural population of Uttarakhand: 1931-2000. International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health, 5(3):1054. https://doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20180760

 

Powers, D.A., Yoshioka, H., & Yun, M.S. (2011). Mvdcmp: Multivariate decomposition for nonlinear response models. The Stata Journal Promoting Communications on Statistics and Stata, 11(4):556-576. https://doi.org/10.1177/1536867x1201100404

 

Sayi, T.S. (2015). Relationships between Marriage and Fertility Changes in Six sub-Saharan African Countries. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.

 

Schneider, D. (2015). The great recession, fertility, and uncertainty: Evidence from the United States. Journal of Marriage and Family, 77(5):1144-1156. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12212

 

Shakya, K., & Gubhaju, B. (2016). Factors contributing to fertility decline in Nepal. Journal of Population and Social Studies, 24(1):13-29. https://doi.org/10.14456/jps.2016

 

Shapiro, D., & Gebreselassie, T. (2014). Marriage in Sub-Saharan Africa: Trends, determinants, and consequences. Population Research and Policy Review, 33(2):229-255. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-013-9287-4

 

Smith-Greenaway, E. (2016). Premarital childbearing in sub-Saharan Africa: Can investing in women’s education offset disadvantages for children? SSM - Population Health, 2:164-174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2016.02.001

 

Taye, B.A., Yirsaw, B.G., Belete, A.K., & Weldearegay, B.Y. (2024). Exploring the determinants of fertility rates in Ethiopia: A decomposition analysis using count regression models with a focus on urban and rural residence, based on the 2019 Ethiopian demographic health survey. Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition, 43(1):162. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41043-024-00659-4

 

Tsegaye Negash, B. (2023). Fertility intention among married women in Ethiopia: A multilevel analysis of Ethiopian demographic health survey 2016. Contraception and Reproductive Medicine, 8(1):6. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40834-022-00201-z

 

Vitali, A., & Billari, F.C. (2017). Changing determinants of low fertility and diffusion: A spatial analysis for Italy. Population, Space and Place, 23(2):e1998. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.1998

 

Walle, E. (2012). Marriage and marital fertility. American Academy of Arts & Sciences and The MIT Press Are, 97(2):486-501.

 

Zabak, S., Varma, A., Bansod, S., & Pohane, M.R. (2023). Exploring the complex landscape of delayed childbearing: Factors, history, and long-term implications. Cureus, 15(9):e46291. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.46291

Share
Back to top
International Journal of Population Studies, Electronic ISSN: 2424-8606 Print ISSN: 2424-8150, Published by AccScience Publishing