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Table 6.4 Median age at first marriage
Median age at first marriage among women age 20-49 years and men age 25-59, by current age and background characteristics,
Ethiopia 2000
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Current age Women Women Men
Background
age age age
characteristic 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 20-49 25-49 25-59
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Residence
Urban
Rural
Region
Tigray
Affar
Amhara
Oromiya
Somali
Benishangul-Gumuz
SNNP
Gambela
Harari
Addis Ababa
Dire Dawa
Education
No education
Primary
Secondary and higher
a 19.6 16.3 16.0 15.4 15.5 17.8 16.9 a
17.6 16.7 15.8 15.8 15.7 15.8 16.2 15.9 23.0
16.4 15.9 15.4 15.4 15.5 15.7 15.7 15.6 a
16.2 15.8 15.5 15.4 15.4 15.2 15.6 15.5 24.4
15.0 14.7 14.4 14.2 14.1 14.0 14.5 14.3 20.8
18.7 17.9 15.9 16.1 16.0 16.2 16.9 16.4 23.6
18.7 18.5 16.9 17.3 15.9 17.3 17.0 17.3 24.2
16.8 16.2 15.1 15.8 15.6 15.5 15.8 15.6 21.7
19.9 19.1 17.1 17.6 16.4 17.2 18.2 17.7 24.5
17.2 16.6 15.8 16.0 16.0 16.5 16.4 16.2 23.8
20.0 18.6 18.2 15.6 15.6 16.4 17.6 16.8 21.9
a 24.3 20.8 16.9 16.0 15.7 a 19.3 a
a 20.9 19.4 18.9 18.2 17.3 a 19.4 a
17.4 16.4 15.7 15.7 15.6 15.7 16.0 15.8 22.7
18.9 18.2 16.2 17.3 17.3 16.0 17.8 17.3 23.3
a 21.9 20.0 18.9 19.9 20.2 a 21.2 a
All women
18.1 17.2 15.8 15.8 15.7 15.7 16.4 16.0 a
All men
a 23.2 24.3 22.9 23.7 21.8 NA NA 23.3
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NA a = Not applicable
Omitted when less than 50 percent of respondents have married for the first time by age 20
6.4 AGE AT FIRST SEXUAL INTERCOURSE
Age at first marriage is usually used as a proxy for the onset of women’s exposure to sexual
intercourse and risk to pregnancy. However, since some women are sexually active before marriage, it
is also important to measure the impact of age at first sexual intercourse on fertility. The 2000 Ethiopia
DHS collected data on the age at which women and men first engaged in sexual intercourse, and the
result is presented in Table 6.5.
Twenty-seven percent of women age 20-49 years have had sexual intercourse by age 15,
64 percent by age 18, and 88 percent by age 25. The median age at first intercourse for women age 20-
49 is 16.4 years and is identical to the median age at first marriage (Table 6.3). This suggests that
Ethiopian women generally begin sexual intercourse at the time of their first marriage. There is an
increase in the median age at first intercourse over the 20 years preceding the survey, from 15.8 years
for women age 45-49 to 18.1 years for women age 20-24. More than two-thirds (69 percent) of women
age 15-19 have never had sex. The proportion declines to 25 percent for women age 20-24 and by age
30-34 almost all women have become sexually active.
The median age at first sex for men age 25-59 is 20.3 years, which is about four years later than
for women. This indicates that women become sexually active at an earlier age than men. However,
unlike women, men become sexually active long before marriage—the median age at first intercourse
among men (20.3 years) is three years lower than their median age at first marriage (23.3 years).
78 * Other Proximate Determinants of Fertility