April 2008 - Volume 2, Issue 2

EFFECT OF THE WORKING STATUS OF BANGLADESHI WOMEN ON AGE AT MARRIAGE AND FERTILITY

Md. Rashed Alam, Lecturer, Dept. of Population Science and human Resource Development, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi-6205 Dilip Kumar Mondo, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Population Science and human Resource Development, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi-6205 Tapan Kumar Roy, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Population Science and human Resource Development, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi-6205 Dr. J.A.M. Shoquilur Rahman, Associate Professor, Dept. of Population Science and human Resource Development, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi-6205 Correspondence address: Md. Rashed Alam, Lecturer Department of Population Science and human Resource Development University of Rajshahi Rajshahi-6205, Bangladesh E-mail: mrasps_29us@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT This paper is on the effect of working status of Bangladeshi women on the decision of age at marriage and fertility in Bangladesh, using national representative data from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS), 2003-2004, allowing for the existence of observed characteristics that affect both age at marriage and fertility. It is well known that working status of women is an important socio-economic variable and that has drawn considerable attention from researchers engaged in the study of fertility differentials and determinants. This study reveals that employed women in such activity contribute in raising age at marriage and thereby affect the reduction of fertility. This also indicated that the singular mean age at marriage increased about 14% and 23% for males and females respectively from 1975 to 1998.

Key words and phrases: Age at marriage, working status of women, and children ever born

INTRODUCTION

Fertility in Bangladesh has long been a topic of interest to researchers because of its apparent relationship with mortality and indirectly with the acceptance of modern contraception. Studies in fertility differentials in Bangladesh are useful for proper planning and policy formation regarding population. Numerous prominent studies have been conducted in Bangladesh over the years in the past emphasizing identification of fertility determinants. The rapid decline of fertility from over 6.5 births per women to 3.2 births, in the last two decades in Bangladesh is indeed, a historical record in demographic transition. However, recent statistics suggest that despite a continuing increase in contraceptive use, the fertility decline in Bangladesh has stalled. The possibility of fertility decline in Bangladesh with special attention to the role that might be played by further improvements in women's education, working status of women, mass media, and family planning services has been studied. In particular, we began a brief review of the programmatic development, policy evolution and social and economic transformation in Bangladesh that might have influenced couples family building strategies. Then the medium variant scenario of the UN projection indicates that Bangladesh will achieve replacement level of fertility (UN, 1991).

The working status of women has a valuable effect on age at marriage and fertility. It is well known that socio-economic and demographic factors play an important role in delaying marriage in a society (Dixon, 1971). The socio-economic factors, and women working status have been widely recognized to have an effect on marital postponement. It is hypothesized that working status delays marriage. Again women's status is widely acknowledged as one of the main determinants of fertility in developed countries (Mac Donalad, 2000). But its potential contribution to reduce fertility and other aspects of reproductive health in developing countries has also been universally acknowledged (ICPD and UNFPA, 1994). If the purpose of working status of women is the development of career opportunities, time spent in the labor market, may lead to further increase in age at marriage. The relationship between working status of women and fertility may be studied by two approaches: (1) that which considers female labor force participation to be determinants of family size and (2) that which has consistently shown an inverse relationship between the number of children ever born and labor force participation or experience (Balakrishran et al., 1979).

A negative relationship between women's labor force participation and fertility can be expected on both sociological and economic grounds. From a sociological perspective, women's participation in the labor market is seen as inconsistent with their traditional role as mothers and homemakers. This "role-incompatibility hypothesis" envisages a negative relationship between women's employment and fertility. The intensity of the relationship will depend on the degree of incompatibility (UN, 1985). Increased labor force participation of women has been proposed repeatedly in both the demographic literature and population policy statements as a means of promoting development and reducing fertility in developing country (Miah and Mizan, 1991 and UN, 1985). In this study working status of women has been classified into two categories: these are (1) Earn cash for work: women are defined in this study as those who are working outside the home for money indicated by 'Yes' and (2) Do not earn cash for work: women are those who have never been employed outside the home for money indicated by 'No'.

In Bangladesh, there is ample evidence to suggest that the trend towards marriage is a less dramatic: age at marriage in those countries, a geographical area that lags far behind others in Asia (M.N. Islam & I.U. Ahmed, 1998). It is a common belief that age at marriage is inversely related to fertility, particularly in countries with no popular or effective use of contraceptives. This means that delayed marriage increases the interval between generations and hence puts an independent barrier to long range population growth by reducing the population of marriage in the reproductive ages relative to total population growth. The singulate mean age at marriage (SMAM) calculated from the proportion single from various sources is presented in table 1.

There has been change in marriage pattern in Bangladesh. From the Figure 1 we observed that singluate mean age at marriage increased about 14% for male and 23% for female during this period. Singular mean age at marriage demonstrates that there has been a long standing trend towards later marriage in Bangladesh and it is still continuing. The age at marriage has increased by 4.3 years from 15.9 years in 1974 to 20.2 years in 1998, implying an annual increase at only 0.18 years. So, the aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of working status of women on age at marriage and fertility.

DATA SOURCE

The data for the present study have been taken from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS), 2003-2004 which is a nationally representative survey of 11,440 women age 10-49 and 4297 men age 15-54 from 10500 households covering 361 sample points (clusters) throughout Bangladesh; 122 in urban areas and 239 in rural areas. This survey is the fourth in a series of national-level population and health surveys conducted as part of the global Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) program. It was selected from the master sample maintained by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) for the implementation of the surveys before the next census (2001). It is designed to provide data to monitor the population and health situation in Bangladesh as a follow-up to the 1993-94, 1996-97 and 1999-2000 BDHS surveys. Previous surveys included only ever-married women and currently married men; this is the first DHS survey in Bangladesh to also include never-married men; i,e., the sample for the survey was ever-married women age 10-49 and all men age 15-54. The BDHS data entry and editing program were written in Integrated System for Survey Analysis (ISSA) and data processing commenced in mid December 1999 and was completed by end of April 2000.

METHOD

Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA) requires one dependent variable and two or more independent variables. The dependent variable can be either a continuous or a categorical variable but all the independent variables must be categorical variables. MCA can equally handle the nominal and ordinal variables and can also deal with linear and non-linear relationships of predictor variables with dependent variables (Andrew F.M., James N.M., John S. and Laurak K., 1973).

Mathematically, the model can be expressed by the following equation:
Y_ijk = y + a_i + b_j + c_k + ---------+ e_ijk

where,

Y_ijk is the value or score of an individual who falls in the i category of the of factor A, J th category of the factor B and k th category of the factor.
y is the grand mean of Y.

a_i is the effect due to the i th category of the factor A, which is equal to the difference between y and the mean of its category of factor A.

b_j is the effect due to j th category of the factor B, which is equal to the difference between y and the mean of its category of the factor B.

c_k is the effect due to the k th category of the factor C, which is equal to the difference between y and the of its category of factor C.

e_ijk is the error related with Y_ijk score of the individuals.

In order to assess the intensity of working status of women on their age at marriage and children ever born per ever-married women, multiple classification analysis (MCA) is adopted. The co-efficient ² and ² obtained from MCA respectively provide the unadjusted and adjusted coefficients. While ² shows how well a single predictor explains variation in age at marriage and ² shows the proportion of variation explained by a predictor taking into account the proportion explained by the other predictors.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The government of Bangladesh in 1984 established the legal age at marriage as 18 years for females and 21 years for males; the law is hardly observed in rural areas. As a result, the age at marriage remains appreciably law in such places. Table 2 shows that mean age at marriage by current age and working status of women in all the divisions of Bangladesh. The salient features of the Table are: The lower age cohorts that mean 10-14 age groups have shown lower age at marriage and 20-29 age groups have shown higher age at marriage of working status of women under consideration. This reveals that an increasing trend of age at marriage from time to time. We also observed that women who had work have a higher age at marriage than who do not work. Hence, the working status of women is associated with increased age at marriage.

Several studies have shown that age at first marriage is inversely related to fertility (Amin & Faruqee, 1980; Ahmed, 1982). Early marriage of women is conducive to high fertility while late marriage has been argued to have a fertility reducing effect (Coale, 1975). Table 3 reveals that the average age at marriage both unadjusted and adjusted by working status of women with the values of ² and ² produced from MCA. We observed that the women who did not work seem to have the higher fertility than those who work. The lowest net mean difference in age at marriage for women who did not work is 0.006 years in Chittagong division and highest is 0.109 years in Sylhet division. The contribution of working status of women on age at marriage given by ² and ² are also depicted in the Table 3. The proportion of variation in age at marriage explained by working status of women is ² = 0.006 and ²= 0.006 is the lowest in Khulna division and ² = 0.109 and ²= 0.109 is the highest in Sylhet division.

Table 4 indicates that the mean number of children ever born per ever married women by working status of women shows that those who did not work have lower fertility expect Barisal division than those who had worked. This Table also shows that Khulna division has the lowest fertility and Sylhet division has the highest fertility than other divisions. Thus, the increase of working status of women is associated with decline in fertility.

Table 5 suggests that the mean number of children ever born per ever married women both unadjusted and adjusted by working status of women with the values of ² and ² produced from MCA. We observed that the women who had worked are the highest fertility than who did not work. The lowest net mean difference in children ever born per women who had worked is 0.004 years, lowest is Barisal division and highest is 0.071 years in Chittagong division. Thus, the working status of women has come out to be stronger determinants in lowering the number of children ever born of Bangladeshi women.

Women working outside the home may have an influence on fertility. They are always sincere and aware of contraceptive methods, have better communication with their husbands and can participate in family decision making and family formation. Table 6 reveals that working status of women has a negative effect on place of residence except Barisal division; and access to mass-media except Sylhet division, and duration of breast-feeding and ideal number of children in all divisions of Bangladesh. Working status of women also shows a positive relationship on children ever born, except Dhaka division and contraceptive use method in all divisions of Bangladesh. Female education is used as a measure of working status of women, almost effectively as using a large number of other variables. The high negative significant correlation between female education and working status of women is -0.166 and the second negative significant correlation between husbands approving family planning and working status of women is -0.084.

Source: BFS, 1975 AND 1989; CENSUS, 1981 AND 1991; BDHS, 1993-94, VRS, 1996 AND 1998.

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Click to view Table 4

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Click to veiw Table 6

CONCLUSION

The evidence presented above leaves no doubt regarding the important role played by working status of women. Working status of women has come out to be the stronger determinant in raising age at marriage of Bangladeshi women. This indicates that the women who earn cash for work have a depressing affect on fertility. It is also observed that fertility decreases with increased female literacy rate and female economic activity rate. Women participation on employment should be increased and encouraged, hence, increase the working status of Bangladeshi women and age at marriage to reduce fertility. The rise in age at marriage in Bangladesh has been remarkably slow during the last 24 years. The above discussion leads to the conclusion that the working status of women is one of the most viable means for enhancing the status of women vis-à-vis raising the age at marriage and to reduce fertility in Bangladesh.

REFERENCES

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