IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0233634.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Factors associated with unmet fertility desire and perceptions of ideal family size among women in Bangladesh: Insights from a nationwide Demographic and Health Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Raisul Akram
  • Abdur Razzaque Sarker
  • Nurnabi Sheikh
  • Nausad Ali
  • MGN Mozumder
  • Marufa Sultana

Abstract

Introduction: Along with the developing world, Bangladesh has made a tremendous improvement in declining total fertility rate, however, this declining trend is not uniform to all the socio-demographic stratum. Incongruities exist between the numbers of children that women bearing and what they actually desired which refers to unmet fertility desire. This study aims to elicit women’s perception of ideal number of children and predictors of unmet fertility desire in Bangladesh. Method: This study analyzed nationally representative cross-sectional Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2014 data. A two-stage stratified random sampling technique was used while a total of 17,863 ever-married women were interviewed between June and November 2014. A total of 10,912 eligible women were included in the analysis. Poisson regression analysis and logistic regression models were used to measure women’s perception of the ideal number of children and to determine the influencing factors of unmet fertility desires. Result: The mean value of the perceived ideal number of children was 2.22 (SD ± 0.73) and the majority of women (71.2%) expect to have two children in their lifetime. Approximately 46% of mothers reported bearing more children than they desired. The perceived ideal number of children was significantly higher among women who were living in rural areas, from Sylhet division, Muslim, unemployed, and experienced child death and those who justified beating. Findings revealed that several factors such as place of residence, geographic location, religion, wealth index, maternal age and education, partners’ education, experiencing child death, and other empowerment-related indicators were significantly associated with unmet fertility desires. Conclusion: Perceived ideal number of children differs among women’s socioeconomic and demographic strata. Unmet fertility desire was also found which indicates that reproductive knowledge and health care services are still necessary for some socio-demographically disadvantaged/vulnerable people and this group should be regularly monitored to control population growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Raisul Akram & Abdur Razzaque Sarker & Nurnabi Sheikh & Nausad Ali & MGN Mozumder & Marufa Sultana, 2020. "Factors associated with unmet fertility desire and perceptions of ideal family size among women in Bangladesh: Insights from a nationwide Demographic and Health Survey," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-17, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0233634
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0233634
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0233634
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0233634&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0233634?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Imai, Katsushi S. & Annim, Samuel Kobina & Kulkarni, Veena S. & Gaiha, Raghav, 2014. "Women’s Empowerment and Prevalence of Stunted and Underweight Children in Rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 88-105.
    2. Goleen Samari, 2017. "Women’s Agency and Fertility: Recent Evidence from Egypt," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 36(4), pages 561-582, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ashraful Kabir & Md Nazmul Karim & Jahirul Karim & Baki Billah, 2023. "Challenges and Strategies in Conducting Population Health Research during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experience from a Nationwide Mixed-Methods Study in Bangladesh," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(9), pages 1-9, April.
    2. Dana Sarnak & Stan Becker, 2022. "Accuracy of wives' proxy reports of husbands' fertility preferences in sub-Saharan Africa," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 46(17), pages 503-546.
    3. Jahar Bhowmik & Raaj Kishore Biswas & Sorif Hossain, 2021. "Child Marriage and Adolescent Motherhood: A Nationwide Vulnerability for Women in Bangladesh," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(8), pages 1-16, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Katsushi S. Imai & Raghav Gaiha & Fabrizio Bresciani, 2016. "Dynamics of Rural Transformation and Poverty and Inequality in Asia and the Pacific," Discussion Paper Series DP2016-30, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, revised Feb 2019.
    2. Han, Wenjing & Zhang, Xiaoling & Zhang, Zhengfeng, 2019. "The role of land tenure security in promoting rural women’s empowerment: Empirical evidence from rural China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 280-289.
    3. Kumo, Kazuhiro & Perugini, Cristiano, 2023. "Religion, Ideology and Fertility," IZA Discussion Papers 16159, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Raymond B. Frempong & David Stadelmann, 2017. "Does Female Education have a Bargaining Effect on Household Welfare? Evidence from Ghana and Uganda," CREMA Working Paper Series 2017-08, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    5. Mathilde Aubouin, 2023. "Determinants of the Digital Divide: Evidence from France," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 151, pages 37-80.
    6. Ummad Mazhar, 2021. "Women empowerment and insecurity: firm-level evidence," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 56(1), pages 43-53, January.
    7. Costa-Font, Joan & Györi, Mario, 2020. "The weight of patriarchy? Gender obesity gaps in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    8. Liyousew Gebremedhin Borga, 2023. "Family policy, intrahousehold bargaining, and child health," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 663-684, May.
    9. Alberto Posso & Stephen C. Smith & Lucia Ferrone & UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti, 2019. "Do constraints on women worsen child deprivations? Framework, measurement, and evidence from India," Papers inwopa1045, Innocenti Working Papers.
    10. Fernandez, Antonia & Kambhampati, Uma S., 2017. "Shared agency: The dominant spouse’s impact on education expenditure," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 182-197.
    11. Frank Agyire-Tettey & Derek Asuman & Charles Godfred Ackah & Antoinette Tsiboe-Darko, 2021. "Multidimensional Child Poverty in Ghana: Measurements, Determinants, and Inequalities," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 14(3), pages 957-979, June.
    12. Adediran, Olanrewaju Adewole, 2024. "The effect of women's decision-making on child nutritional outcomes in South Africa," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    13. Lavin, Felipe Vasquez & Bratti, Luna & Orrego, Sergio & Barrientos, Manuel, 2020. "Assessing the Use of Pseudo-panels to Estimate the Value of Statistical Life in Developing Countries," EfD Discussion Paper 20-20, Environment for Development, University of Gothenburg.
    14. Sinha, Aakanksha & McRoy, Ruth G. & Berkman, Barbara & Sutherland, Melissa, 2017. "Drivers of change: Examining the effects of gender equality on child nutrition," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 203-212.
    15. Arulampalam, Wiji, 2016. "Does greater autonomy among women provide the key to better child nutrition?," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1117, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    16. Juliana Yael Milovich & Elena Villar, 2020. "It Takes a Village to Raise a Child. Impact Evaluation of the Training for Volunteers in Health and the Nutritional Recovery Cycles in West Guatemala," EconomiX Working Papers 2020-14, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    17. Biplab Dhak, 2021. "Socio-economic inequalities of child undernutrition in Gujarat: over-time change and inter-district disparities," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 23(1), pages 153-165, June.
    18. Imai, Katsushi S. & Gaiha, Raghav & Thapa, Ganesh, 2015. "Does non-farm sector employment reduce rural poverty and vulnerability? Evidence from Vietnam and India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 47-61.
    19. Dahlum, Sirianne & Knutsen, Carl Henrik & Mechkova, Valeriya, 2022. "Women’s political empowerment and economic growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    20. Ulrich Nguemdjo & Bruno Ventelou, 2020. "How do migrations affect under-five mortality in rural areas? Evidence from Niakhar, Senegal," Working Papers halshs-03078776, HAL.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0233634. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.