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Factors associated with adolescent fertility: A study of Ethiopia

Abdissa Kabeto*

Objective: To determine the level of adolescent fertility and identify factors associated with adolescent fertility, as well as compare the factors associated with adolescent fertility among all and ever-married adolescents. Method: A nationally representative data was used from Ethiopian Demographic Health Survey (EDHS), 2011. From large data set, 3,323 observations of adolescents 15-19 years of age were extracted. Firstly, the characteristics of the study population were summarized. The outcome variable was live birth experience. The predictor variables were age, marital status, household size, educational level, region, religion, employment status, contraceptive use, ideal family size, drinking alcohol and chewing khat for all adolescent analyses; additional variables like age at first marriage, husband education level was included in ever-married group analyses. Secondly, separate bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify the factors associated with adolescent fertility.

Results: The live birth experience among all adolescents was 10.74%, while it was 42.68% among ever-married adolescent group. Age, marital status, household size, region, educational status, religion, contraceptive use, ideal family size was significantly associated with live birth experience; under adjusted comparison, age, marital status and some regions were positively associated with live birth experience, while education level of secondary and above was negatively associated with live birth experience in all adolescent mode. In the ever-married adolescents group analyses; age, household size, region, educational level, child death experience, age at first marriage, ideal family size and drinking alcohol were significantly associated with live birth experience; under adjusted comparison, age, some regions and ideal family size of greater than four were positively associated with live birth experience, while late age at first marriage and living in larger household size were negatively associated with live birth experience.

Conclusion: Live birth experience among adolescents was relatively high in Ethiopia. Based on the results of this study to identify factors associated with adolescent fertility, improving the educational status of adolescents to secondary and above level, providing access to basic reproductive health services in regions with high adolescent fertility, and awareness creation of the family and marriage law are highly needed to mitigate the challenges of adolescent fertility in Ethiopia.