Bangladesh 1993-1994 Demographic and Health ... - Measure DHS

Table 6.2 Fertility preferences by agePercent distribution of currently married women age 10-49 by desire for more children, according to age, Bangladesh1993-94Desire forAge of womanchildren 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 TotalHave another soon z 36.1 29.3 19.2 12.8 8.9 4.4 2.4 1.1 13.6Have another later 2 57.5 56.3 38.2 18.0 5.6 1.7 0.4 0.0 21.8Have another, undecided when 3.7 3.2 2.5 2.9 1.1 1.1 0.3 0.4 2.0Undecided 2.4 2.0 3.4 2.6 2.7 1.8 1.2 0.4 2.4Want no more 0.0 8.9 34.2 55.6 66.3 67.3 66.0 58.7 47.8Sterilized 0.0 0.2 2.4 7.4 14.6 19.8 18.6 14.1 9.2Declared infecund 0.3 0.0 0.1 0.5 0.7 3.8 10.9 25.0 3.1Missing 0.0 0.1 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.1Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0Number of women 140 1224 1964 1911 1353 1079 767 541 8980IWant next birth within 2 years2Want to delay next birth for 2 or more yearsThe proportion of women who want no more children is the most important measure of fertilitypreference. Table 6.3 and Figure 6.3 show the percentage of currently married women who want no morechildren by number of living children and selected background characteristics. Urban women begin to wantto limit family size at lower parities than rural women. For example, 71 percent of urban women with twochildren say that they do not want another child, compared to only 56 percent of rural women. However,virtually identical proportions want to stop childbearing among both urban and rural women with five or morechildren.Regionally, women in Chittagong Division appear to be more pronatalist than those in the otherdivisions. Only 43 percent of women with two children in Chittagong Division want to stop childbearing,while the corresponding rates for women in the other divisions are more than 58 percent.The negative association between educational level and the proportion wanting no more childrenamong married women is at least partially a result of the concentration of more educated women at youngerages and, thus, lower parities, where women are more likely to express a desire for more children. A positiveassociation between educational level and the proportion wanting no more children is clearly evident formarried women who have two or more children. For example, among women with two children, 56 percentof those with no education want to stop childbearing, compared to 66 percent of those with at least somesecondary education.84