Gurmu, Eshetu (PhD)Bekele, Nebiyou2018-09-182023-11-182018-09-182023-11-182007-07http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/12345678/11948The fertility levels of the two cities (Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa) are among the lowest in the country. However the low fertility rates are not the result of a decline in the number of births rather it is due to the presence of large number of women out of marital union. As a result the marital fertility rates are much higher than the fertility levels of the total women. This paper, therefore, uses the data from the 2005 Demographic and Health Survey of Ethiopia to identify the factors that affect the marital fertility of women in the two major cities of the country. Since the two cities have large number of migrants, the study gives special emphasis to the effect of migration status on fertility. The women whose previous place of residence is out of the two cities are classified as migrants whereas those who never changed their residence since birth are treated as nonmigrants. Women who are married and are in marital union at the time of the survey are the unit of analysis. A total of 757 women of which 515 are migrants and the remaining 242 are natives are included in the analysis. The study applies descriptive, bivariate and multivariate statistical methods. In the bivariate analysis one-way ANOVA is applied to test the presence of significant differences in mean CES among the sub-groups of independent variables. The ANOVA tests indicate that the difference in fertility among the sub-groups of religion, ethnicity, education, number of times married, age at .first marriage and variables related to migration status are significant. On the other hand the contraceptive use, work status and place of residence are not found to be responsible for the fertility variation of the target population. The multivariate finding of the study illustrates that age at first marriage is the strongest factor in causing fertility variation among the sampled women. Education, contraceptive use, religion and ethnicity are other important factors that affect fertility of the respondents. The multivariate result also shows that fertility of the target population does not differ by region and migration related variables.enCurrently Married, 1 WomenThesis