The Statistical Distribution and Some Determinants of Birth Interval for Rural Ethiopia
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Date
2011-05
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Addis Abeba university
Abstract
Studying the dynamics of spacing of births is important for several reasons
including an understanding of completed family size. In this paper the length of
birth interval between successive children that is called inter-birth interval in rural
community of Ethiopia was considered. The birth-interval approach used to study
the tempo of fertility as measured by the transition time for those women who
continue reproduction. The data for the study was obtained from Ethiopian
Demography and Health Survey data conducted in 2005. The data contains 9647
rural women aged from 15-49 years.
The approach of the study was fitting probability density functions to identify
from among the three gamma, lognormal and normal distributions that provide
adequate fit. Identifying variables that affect birth intervals was done by parametric
survival analysis technique called “accelerated failure time” model.
The result shows that the duration time between successive births is different
for different regions, religion groups and education level. Comparatively mothers
from the northern region have longer birth interval, while mothers from eastern
region have the shortest; and the birth interval for those mothers from central and
south regions lie between. The length of birth is short in illiterate mothers than other
groups. Muslim mothers have shorter birth interval than followers of “other”
religions. Intervals following the death of the previous child (or children) tend to be
significantly shorter than intervals where the child survived. The median length of
birth intervals in rural community of Ethiopia is 28 months and more than 75% of
births occur within 3 years
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Keywords
Determinants of Birth