Education, proximate determinants and fertility levels in Bangladesh

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of education, particularly the individual and the regional level of education, on fertility in Bangladesh, based on a subset of data from the Bangladesh Fertility Survey (BFS) and the Household Survey conducted during 1975-76. The study examines effect of education on the proximate determinants of fertility, namely marriage, postpartum non-susceptibility to conception and contraception and their combined effect on overall fertility levels in education subgroups and areas. Bangladesh has been grouped into High, Moderate, Low and Lowest Education Areas based on the proportion of women with No Schooling.

This study has been divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the aims, scope and importance of the study, the· source of data, and background information on the study population. Chapter 2 reviews the relevant literature, while Chapters 3 and 4 analyse the effect of individual and regional levels of education respectively. The Bongaarts model is used to quantify the contribution of proximate determinants of fertility and to determine the effect of education at both these levels .

As shown in Chapter 3, a small amount of education tends to increase fertility at the individual level. However, those with higher education have the lowest fertility. At the regional level the effect of education is different, with overall fertility of the area falling as the proportion of educated women in the area increases. Some effect of the community level of education is evident for uneducated women living in a High Education Area.

The contribution of the duration of postpartum non-susceptibility is stronger for less educated women and in areas where the overall level of education is lower, while marriage patterns and contraceptive use

have important effects when education is high at both the individual and regional levels. Thus, an understanding of the effect of education on fertility at both the individual and regional level is important when population policies to reduce fertility levels are formulated.