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

CHAPTER 3FERTILITY3.1 IntroductionThe measurement of fertility levels, differentials and determinants was a major objective of the 1993-94 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS). As one of the most densely populated countriesin the world, Bangladesh takes enormous interest in measuring the rate of growth of its population. Previoussurveys had indicated that the level of fertility was declining rapidly and there was considerable interest tosee if the trend had continued.The fertility indicators presented in this chapter are based on reports provided by ever-marriedwomen age 15-49 years regarding their reproductive histories. Each woman was asked to provide informationon the total number of sons and daughters to whom she had given birth who were living with her, thenumber living elsewhere, and the number who had died. The women were also asked for a history of all livebirths, including such information as: name, month and year of birth, sex and survival status. For childrenwho had died, information on age at death was solicited.The above information is analyzed in the following sections to provide fertility levels and trends;fertility differentials by residence, division, and education; information on length of intervals between births;age at first birth; and the extent of childbearing among adolescents. A brief discussion of the quality of theBDHS fertility data appears in Appendix C.2.3.2 Fertility LevelsTable 3.1 gives the reported age-specific fertility rates for the three-year period preceding the surveyper 1,000 women? The sum of the age-specific fertility rates (known as the total fertility rate) is a usefulmeans of summarizing the level of fertility. It can be interpreted as the number of children a woman wouldhave by the end of her childbearing years if she were to pass through those years bearing children at thecurrently observed age-specific rates. The general fertility rate represents the annual number of births in apopulation per 1,000 women age 15-44. The crude birth rate is the annual number of births in a populationper 1,000 people. Both these measures are calculated using the birth history data for the three-year periodbefore the survey and the age and sex distribution of the household population.The total fertility rate for the three years before the survey (approximately 1991 through 1993) is 3.4children per woman. This represents a huge decline in fertility over the recent past (see section 3.4). The agepattern of fertility indicates that Bangladeshi women have children early in the childbearing period; by age30, a woman will have given birth to over 70 percent of the children she will ever have. The crude birth ratel Numerators of the age-specific fertility rates are calculated by summing the number of live births that occurred inthe period 1-36 months preceding the survey (determined by the date of interview and the date of birth of the child), andclassifying them by the age (in five-year groups) of the mother at the time of birth (determined by the mother's date ofbirth). The denominators of the rates are the number of woman-years lived in each of the specified five-year age groupsduring the 1-36 months preceding the survey. Since only women who had ever married were interviewed in the BDHS,the number of women in the denominators of the rates were inflated by factors calculated from information in thehousehold questionnaire on proportions ever-married in order to produce a count of all women. Never-married womenare presumed not to have given birth.23