Age at first marriage and its relation to fertility in Bangladesh

The 2007 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) data are exploited to examine the effects of socioeconomic and demographic factors on age at first marriage linkage to reproductive behavior of Bangladeshi women. The mean age at first marriage of women is found to be 15.48 years. Multivariate logistic regression technique shows that place of residence, religion, region, wealth index, education, and occupation are significantly important factors for determining age at first marriage. The relationship between marriage and fertility suggests that women who marry at a younger age produce more children than women who marry late. Findings of this study show that if the age at first marriage of adolescents is increased by 1 year, the age at first birth is postponed by 0.728 years. With the increase in age at first marriage, the fecundability of women sharply rises, whereas the proportion of temporary sterility decreases. Although there is a positive association between age at first marriage and age-specific marital fertility rates, the total parity per woman at the end of the reproductive period is expected to reduce by 0.196 for each 1-year delayed marriage.