Abstract:
Background: Fertility is one of the elements in population dynamics that has a significant
contribution towards changing population size and structure over time. Following Nigeria,
Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa. Determining the factors that
influence fertility is essential to developing new policies to improve maternal and child
health, minimize high rates of population increase fertility in Ethiopia. The main aim of this
study was to explore socio economic and demographic factors of fertility in Ethiopia among
married women in the Reproductive age group using a count model.
Methods: The data was taken from the 2019 EMDHS data, which was gathered
representatively across Ethiopia's two city administrations and all administrative areas. A
multilevel count model was used to investigate the high risk variables associated with high
fertility in Ethiopia with a response variable of the number of living children ever born.
Results: According to the findings of the respondents' descriptive study, women have an
average of 4.36 living children per mother. The dispersion parameter is examined using the
negative binomial regression count model, and the results indicate that it is not significant at
the 5% level of significance. The predictor variables, mother’ place of residence, region
,religion, wealth index, age at first birth, ,current age, contraceptive use, marital status, sex
of household head, age of household head and age at first birth were found significant
determinants at 5% significance level. The initial plot of the expected number of live births
versus the different predictors showed regional variations in fertility in Ethiopia.
Furthermore, the multilevel analysis demonstrated that, at the 5% level of significance, the
variance in the number of living children per mother to be 0.220 with a standard error of
0.1003.
Conclusion: In comparison to the Negative Binomial model, it was discovered that the
Poisson Regression Model is more appropriate to the data. The single level Poisson
regression model's results indicated that Somali regions had the greatest rate of fertility. To
minimize Ethiopia’s high fertility rate, it is critical to encourage women to use contraceptives
and to wait until marriage in order to raise the age at first birth. Regions with high
reproductive capacity should receive extra consideration.
