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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Reprod. Health
Sec. Adolescent Reproductive Health and Well-being
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frph.2024.1419537
This article is part of the Research Topic Child Marriage – A Global Adolescent Development Problem: Is the World Ready to Eliminate It? View all 3 articles

Multilevel survival analysis of the age at first birth among women in Ethiopia

Provisionally accepted

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction The age at first birth is the age at which a mother has her first child. It can significantly influence the demographic behavior of women and the general community. Moreover, teenage childbearing is a serious public health and social problem. The main objective of this study was to identify factors associated with age at first birth among women in Ethiopia. Methods Secondary data on women was obtained from the 2019 Ethiopia mini demographic and health survey. This population-based cross-sectional data was downloaded from the measure demographic and health survey website (http://www.measuredhs.com). The study included a random sample of 8885 women aged 15–49 from 305 enumeration areas. A multilevel survival analysis was employed to identify the factors associated with teenage childbearing among women in Ethiopia. Results The majority (67.7%) of randomly sampled women were subjected to teenage childbearing. Women being rural dweller (HR = 1.27, 95% CI: 1.05, 1.54); women from middle-income families (HR = 1.43, 95% CI: 1.18, 1.74); and women from higher-income families (HR = 1.40, 95% CI: 1.15, 1.70) were associated with a higher risk of teenage childbearing. While contraception method users (HR=0.87, 95% CI: 0.77, 0.99), Muslims (HR= 0.75, 95% CI: 0.64, 0.89), orthodoxes (HR= 0.68, 95% CI: 0.57, 0.80), women with secondary education (HR=0.53, 95% CI: 0.43, 0.65), women with higher education (HR=0.28 (95% CI: 0.22, 0.37), and the higher age of household head (HR= 0.99, 95% CI: 0.98, 0.99) were associated with the lower risk of teenage childbearing among women in Ethiopia. Conclusion Since the median age of women to have their first child was 18 years old, this study strongly suggests that stakeholders at the federal and regional levels must work closely towards enforcing the legal age of marriage and implementing national adolescents' and youths' targeted sexual and reproductive health programs.

    Keywords: Age at first birth, Ethiopia, Demographic and Health Survey, Multilevel survival analysis, Teenage childbearing

    Received: 18 Apr 2024; Accepted: 09 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Mohammed Hussen, Gebeyehu, Shibeshi, Mamo, Kassa and Getaneh Arge. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Nuru Mohammed Hussen, Samara University, Semera, Ethiopia

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