Socio-Economic and Demographic Determinants of First Marital Disruption among Women in Arada Sub-City, Addis Ababa
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Date
2007-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The Study focuses on the socio- economic and demographic determinants of first marital
di sruption among women in Arada Sub-C ity. The study is initiated with the objective of
identifying the major divorce or separa tion causes and critica lly exam ining the soc io-economic
and demographic variables in the variation of these contributory facto rs. It is hypothesized that
marital di sru ption would be higher for marriage perfo rmed at early age and at lower education
level, for couples with no children , for marriage entered with out one's consent and for early
duration of marriage.
The study used ma inly primary data generated through conducting a household sample survey
with structured questionnaire to collect the required information. An in-depth interview was also
used to substanti ate and cross check the information obtained from the structu red questionnaire.
The units of analysis for this study are ever-married women (excluding widowed for first
marriage) who are residing in Arada Sub City, Add is Ababa. The sampling procedure followed a
multistage sampling tech nique in which selected Kebeles were divided in to the manageable
enumeration areas so that household listing would be made in order to identity the target
population. The dependent variab le (fi rst marriage in stab ility) is composed of categories of
marriage disruptions due to divorce or separation and the comparative categories of intact
marriage. Some of the methods of ana lys is that were used in thi s study include uni-variate, bivariate
and multi-variate techniques of logistic regression analysis.
The results of logi stic regression analysis revealed that early age at first marriage has a significant
and negative relationship with first marriage disruption. Duration of first marriage also showed
inverse relationship with the chance of marital disruption. The probability of marital disr uption is
higher for early durations than the late durations of marriages. Working women were high ly
related to the odds of being divorced or separated than the non-working one. Marriage made by
own choice and consent reduced the odds of marriage disruption as compared to arranged
marriages. The ed ucation level had a signi fica nt and negative re lationship with the chance of
marital disruption.
It is recommended that governmental and other concerned bodies des ign methods through which
the most significant variables that highly determine the stability of first marriage will be brought
to atte ntion and thus the impact of marital di sruption would be lessened in the fa mily and in the
society at large.
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Keywords
Demographic Determinants