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

Table 6.5 Ideal and actual number of childrenPercent dis=ibution of ever-married women by ideal number of children and mean ideal number of children for ever-marriedwomen and for currently married women, according to number of living children, Bangladesh 1993-94Number of living children lIdeal numberof children 0 1 2 3 4 5 6+ Total0 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.01 5.1 3.5 1.0 2.1 1.7 0.6 0.5 2.12 66.2 71.0 64.8 49.2 50.8 44.5 32.5 56.23 13.8 15.6 23.2 33.3 21.8 30.2 27.5 23.54 5.6 4.5 5.9 8.3 16.9 14.1 21.2 9.95 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.8 0.9 2.2 1.3 0.76+ 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.3 1.0 0.5 2.4 0.6Non-numeric response 8.5 4.7 4.6 6.1 6.7 8.0 14.4 7.0Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0Number of ever-marrledwoman 1024 1791 2024 1636 1183 852 1130 9640Mean ideal number 2.2 2.2 2.4 2.5 2.7 2.7 3.0 2.5Number of ever-marriedwomen 937 1707 1932 1537 1104 784 967 8968Mean ideal for currentlymarried women 2.2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.7 2.7 3.0 2.5Number of currently marriedwomen 834 1560 1813 1464 1048 729 921 8369Note: The means exclude women who gave non-ntuneric responses.qncludes current pregnancylarger families will tend to actually have them. Second, women who have larger families may tend torationalize their family size by reporting their actual number of children as their ideal number. Finally,women with larger families, being older, on average, than women with smaller families, may have larger idealfamily sizes, because of attitudes they acquired 20 to 30 years ago.Despite the likelihood that some rationalization of large families occurs, it is common for women toreport ideal family sizes lower than their actual number of children. For example, 74 percent of women withfour children report fewer than four children as their ideal number and 89 percent of those with 5 childrenstate an ideal number of children less than five. These proportions are considerably higher than similarfigures reported for 1989. For example, in 1989, only 38 percent of currently married women with fourchildren stated ideal family sizes that were less than four (Huq and Cleland, 1990:55).Table 6.6 shows the mean ideal number of children for ever-married women interviewed in the 1993-94 BDHS by age group and selected background characteristics. The mean ideal number of childrenincreases with age from 2.2 percent among women age 10-14 to 2.7 among women age 45-49. Rural womenhave slightly higher family size norms than urban women; this differential is reflected in every age group.Regionally, the largest mean ideal family size is found among women in Chittagong (2.8 children), regardlessof age group. Women in Khulna Division have the lowest ideal family size (2.3 children), which also holdstrue for every age group. Ideal family size is correlated with the level of education attained. Women withno education want the largest mean ideal family size (2.6 children), while women with some secondaryeducation want the smallest (2.2 children); this is true for every age group except 15-19, though thedifferences are small for some age groups.88