Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), Agargaon, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Department of Management Science, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2020 May 22;15(5):e0233634. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0233634. eCollection 2020.
Along with the developing world, Bangladesh has made a tremendous improvement in declining total fertility rate, however, this declining trend is not uniform to all the socio-demographic stratum. Incongruities exist between the numbers of children that women bearing and what they actually desired which refers to unmet fertility desire. This study aims to elicit women's perception of ideal number of children and predictors of unmet fertility desire in Bangladesh.
This study analyzed nationally representative cross-sectional Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2014 data. A two-stage stratified random sampling technique was used while a total of 17,863 ever-married women were interviewed between June and November 2014. A total of 10,912 eligible women were included in the analysis. Poisson regression analysis and logistic regression models were used to measure women's perception of the ideal number of children and to determine the influencing factors of unmet fertility desires.
The mean value of the perceived ideal number of children was 2.22 (SD ± 0.73) and the majority of women (71.2%) expect to have two children in their lifetime. Approximately 46% of mothers reported bearing more children than they desired. The perceived ideal number of children was significantly higher among women who were living in rural areas, from Sylhet division, Muslim, unemployed, and experienced child death and those who justified beating. Findings revealed that several factors such as place of residence, geographic location, religion, wealth index, maternal age and education, partners' education, experiencing child death, and other empowerment-related indicators were significantly associated with unmet fertility desires.
Perceived ideal number of children differs among women's socioeconomic and demographic strata. Unmet fertility desire was also found which indicates that reproductive knowledge and health care services are still necessary for some socio-demographically disadvantaged/vulnerable people and this group should be regularly monitored to control population growth.
随着发展中国家的发展，孟加拉国在降低总和生育率方面取得了巨大进展，但这种下降趋势并非在所有社会人口阶层都均匀分布。妇女的生育数量与实际生育意愿之间存在差异，这表明存在未满足的生育意愿。本研究旨在了解孟加拉国妇女对理想子女数量的看法以及未满足生育意愿的预测因素。
本研究分析了具有全国代表性的横断面 2014 年孟加拉国人口与健康调查数据。采用两阶段分层随机抽样技术，2014 年 6 月至 11 月期间对 17863 名已婚妇女进行了访谈。共有 10912 名符合条件的妇女纳入分析。采用泊松回归分析和逻辑回归模型来衡量妇女对理想子女数量的看法，并确定未满足生育意愿的影响因素。
感知到的理想子女数量平均值为 2.22（SD±0.73），大多数妇女（71.2%）期望一生中生育两个孩子。大约 46%的母亲报告生育的孩子数量超过了她们的期望。生活在农村地区、来自锡尔赫特地区、穆斯林、失业、经历过儿童死亡以及支持打孩子的妇女，其感知到的理想子女数量显著更高。研究结果表明，一些因素，如居住地、地理位置、宗教、财富指数、母亲年龄和教育程度、伴侣的教育程度、经历儿童死亡以及其他与赋权相关的指标，与未满足的生育意愿显著相关。
妇女的社会经济和人口统计学特征存在差异，她们感知到的理想子女数量也存在差异。还发现了未满足的生育意愿，这表明生殖知识和保健服务对一些社会人口学上处于劣势/脆弱地位的人仍然是必要的，应定期监测这一群体，以控制人口增长。
