Women’s education, religion and fertility in Bangladesh

Bangladesh has experiencing a fertility decline over the last few decades. Although many factors have been shown to influence women’s childbearing but socioeconomic factors such as education and religion are some of the prime factors that mainly influence women’s fertility in Bangladesh. So, it is important to know how education and religion determine women’s mean no of children and women’s age at first birth. In this paper, the discussion about education is made with reference to educational attainment. This research had the interest of examining whether education level attainment (i.e. primary, secondary and higher) influences women’s mean number of children or women’s mean age of first birth in Bangladesh. The target group of the study was women who had their ages ranged from 15 to 49 years. To make possible the study here the 2014 Bangladesh demographic health survey (BDHS) was used. The economic theory and demand for children concept were used to offer a theoretical framework on the topic. The study was based on the contention that the higher the education level of women, the lesser number of children they have. There were also comparisons on religion. Muslim non-educated women have more children compare to other religion groups. Finally, to make relationship among fertility education and religion, regression models were used. From the regression performed, the results portrayed that educational level does influence women’s fertility especially for women with completed secondary and higher education. Controlling for age and religion, women with no education have much more children and a significantly earlier age at first birth compared with women with either primary or secondary education (p<0.001). Controlling for education, there is significant difference between Non-Muslim and Muslims in total children ever born and age at first birth. Controlling for both age and education, Muslims have significantly more children and a significantly earlier age at first birth compared with women with Non-Muslim (p<0.01). This result tends to be fall in line to what was expected except a little difference in religion group. There is no difference in total number of children between Muslim and NonMuslims educated women. The results showed that although education shapes women’s fertility, the other socioeconomic and demographic factors have significant role in women’s fertility in Bangladesh. Keywords; fertility, Bangladesh, female education, demographic health survey, religion, regression