Spouse age difference and fertility in rural Bangladesh: implications for raising the age at marriage of females
Stoeckel, J.; Chowdhury Akma
Biology and Society the Journal of the Eugenics Society 1(1): 139-143
1984
ISSN/ISBN: 0266-3880 PMID: 12266996 Document Number: 495987
This study analyzed all births registered in 1968-71 in a population of 117,000 in 132 villages of Matlab Thana, Bangladesh, to test the hypothesis that there is an inverse relationship between spouse age difference and fertility. Marital age-specific and marital total fertility rates were calculated for spouse age difference categories. 73% of the women in the sample had husbands who were at least 10 years their senior, and in 21% of cases the husbands were 15 or more years older. However, the proportions of women whose husbands were more than 14 years older was higher among women in the older age groups. Throughout the age structure, fertility rates declined as the age difference from the husband increased. The total marital fertility rate was 7.3 among women 5-9 years younger than their husbands, 6.9 when there was a 10-14 year difference, 6.4 when the age difference was 15-19 years, and 5.5 when the age difference was 20 years or more. Also analyzed was the magnitude of the effect of the widespread difference in age between spouses in Bangladesh on the crude birth rate. If all women whose husbands are 15 or more years older were shifted to the group in which husbands are 10-14 years older, the crude birth rate would be 2.6% higher. If all women whose husbands are 10 or more years older were shifted to the group in which husbands are 5-9 years older, the birth rate would increase by 5.4%. Overall, reduction of the age difference between spouses to 5-9 years would imply an additional 170,000 births that would have to be prevented to maintain the current crude birth rate in Bangladesh of 46. These findings have implications for population policies aimed at increasing the age at marriage of females. Such a policy is likely to produce a narrowing or reduction in the differences in ages between spouses as well as a reduction in the length of exposure for reproduction.