Survival Analysis Of Time-To-First Birth After Marriage Among Women In Ethiopia: Application Of Parametric Shared Frailty Model.

Abstract

: Marriage to first birth interval is important incidence in the life of women with increasing responsibilities. It plays a significant role in the future life of each woman and has a direct relationship with fertility. Ethiopia is the second most populous countries in sub-Saharan Africa next to Nigeria along with scarcity of resources. This study aimed to investigate the potential risk factors affecting time-to-first birth among married women in Ethiopia using parametric shared frailty model where regional states of the women were used as a clustering effect in the model since. Time-to-first birth and First birth interval (FBI) are used interchangeably in this document. Methods: The data source for the analysis was the 2011 EDHS data. The study considered 7,925 women who went into marriage for the first time without a child or no pregnancy from eight regional states and two city administrations. The AFT and parametric gamma shared frailty models were employed with the help of R statistical package and STATA soft wares. Results: The median survival time of first birth interval and the median age of women at first marriage were 30 months and 16 years respectively. The clustering effect was significant and lognormal gamma shared frailty model was preferred over weibull and log-logistic gamma shared frailty models based on AIC and graphical evidence. The result showed women’s educational, age of women at marriage, contraceptive, place of residence, and employment status of women were significantly affect timing of first birth interval. Women who used contraceptive had prolonged time-to-first birth by the factor of ϕ=1.116 and women lived in urban had prolonged by the factor of ϕ=1.292 from their counterpart. Conclusion: The result suggested that women from different region had different pattern in their timing of first birth interval. Women education, increasing age of women at marriage shorten timing of first birth but urban women, employed and contraceptive users had longer survival of time-to-first birth from their respective counterpart. Creating job opportunities, give awareness on family planning through use of contraceptive and the importance of elongating time-to-first birth for rural women are important avenues for rising time to first birth.