Fertility status and associated factors among the reproductive age group in Ethiopia: Mini Demographic and Health Survey 2019

Abstract

Abstract Background: Fertility status is the possibility to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of reproductive age. There are a number of environmental and biological factors that influence a person's reproductive behavior when viewed from a demographic perspective, which serve to mediate the impact of culture, society, economic conditions, living standards, and other similar background factors. The aim of this study was to determine factors associated with fertility status among the reproductive age group. Methods: The data for this study was extracted from Ethiopia mini demographic and health survey 2019. The study involved 8885 household with reproductive age group in a weighted sample. The analysis was performed using STATA version 16 software. Using sampling weights for descriptive statistics and complex sample designs for inferential statistics, backward stepwise elimination was manually applied. Finally, statistical significance declared at the level of p-value < 0.05. Result: The prevalence of fertility status in Ethiopia was observed to be 44.7%. In multivariate analysis the household female (AOR = 0.465, 95% CI: 0.418-0.517) had lower odds of fertility status in comparison to household male. The odds of fertility status were higher among the catholic religion as compared to the orthodox religion, (AOR = 1.615, 95% CI: 1.408-1.853). The odds of fertility status were lower in the Addis Ababa region in comparison to the Tigray region (AOR = 0.636, 95% CI: 0.495-0.818). Fertility status odds were lower among those who could read only parts of the sentence literacy in comparison to those who were unable to read at all (AOR = 0.736, 95% CI: 0.623-0.869). The odds of fertility status were lower among primary educational levels as compared to no educational levels (AOR = 0.721, 95% CI: 0.632-0.823). Regarding the household wealth index, the richest-wealth index (AOR = 0.832, 95% CI: 0.689-1.004) had lower odds of fertility status when compared with children from the poorest-wealth index. There was a lower odds of fertility status for electricity users compared with wood charcoal users using electricity as a cooking fuel (AOR = 0.825, 95% CI: 0.681-0.999). The odds of fertility status were higher among those with no toilet facility than those with pit latrines (AOR = 1.145, 95% CI: 1.009-1.298). Conclusion: The high fertility status and population growth observed in this study. It shows significantly associated with household sex, region, literacy, educational level, religion, wealth index, cooking fuel, and toilet facility had a statistically significant association with fertility status. There are many factors contributing to economic development, including access to education and media, as well as job opportunities in modern economic sectors. In addition to this, it is important to develop and maintain access of family planning services.