Fertility and infertility in Ethiopia

Abstract

This research examines fertility and infertility in Ethiopia. Its two major objectives are the estimation of regional and overall fertility and infertility levels over time for the rural population and Addis Ababa, the capital city; and a comparative fertility study by regions, rural-city, and by demographic and socio-economic characteristics of individual women. This study uses data from various sources to arrive at a coherent picture of fertility levels and trends in Ethiopia: these include a primary analysis of the 1980-81 Demographic Survey of the rural areas and a subset of the 1984 Addis Ababa Population Census data tapes. Indirect estimation of fertility levels showed a substantial recent fertility change in Ethiopia. Rural fertility increased from a moderate level of 5.6 children per woman in the 1965-70 period to a very high level of 7.7 children in 1980-81. Regional estimates also showed a universal rise in rural fertility. On the other hand, the fertility of the city was found to be comparatively low, and declined from about five children per woman in the 1967-78 period to four in 1983-84. The fertility rise in the rural areas was due to a declining trend of infecundity and subfertility, and changes in the age pattern of overall and marital fertility leading to enhanced fertility of women over age 30 in 1980-81 compared to the lower fecundity of these women in the earlier periods; as the proportion married has remained stable at a favourably high level. The study has shown that the low-fertility regions had high childlessness associated with low maternal fertility, and the converse was true for highfertility regions. The low fertility of the city was found to be due to a combination of a markedly high level of childlessness and relatively low maternal fertility. Nevertheless, the low fertility of the city was also found to be due to the unfavourable marital status patterns caused by migration, urbanization and education. Thus, it was also due to later marriage, and comparatively low proportions married. The study documented the existence of high levels of infecundity and subfertility in Ethiopia with considerable variations by region of residence and ethnicity, and has shown the extension of the broad belt of infertility and low fertility of Africa from Central Africa into Ethiopia. The multivariate analysis of rural marital fertility showed that region, length of residence in a given area, ethnicity, and literacy status had significant effects. While age is the most important factor among the young, region and ethnicity were found to be the most important factors influencing completed marital fertility. The factors that jointly had significant fertility effects both among the young and the old in the city were age, educational level, ethnicity, length of residence in the city, and economic activity status. The important determinants of completed marital fertility were the social factors, ethnicity and religion, while among the young, they were age, ethnicity and educational level. While being literate in the rural areas had a depressing effect on fertility, education in the city had such an effect only for those women with post-primary education. The study concludes by giving a perspective of rising fertility for Ethiopia for some time to come, while prospects of early decline are contingent upon the country implementing a population policy to curb its high fertility. Show more