Factors that influence the number of children ever born among women (35-49 years) in Karamoja region

Abstract

Uganda is known as one of the many African countries that still has a high fertility. The total fertility rate for Uganda was 5.4 according to the Demographic Health Survey of 2016 (DHS 2016). The United Nations data of 2020 shows that the fertility rate of Uganda is 4.780 births per woman. This proves that the total fertility rate of Ugandan women is lowering though at a very small rate. According to the Uganda Demographic health survey of 2016 Karamoja region has a total fertility rate of 7.9 births per woman making it the region with the highest TFR in Uganda. The lowering of the total fertility of women in Uganda is mainly contributed by the improving education facilities, health facilities and government policies.

This study used the 2016 UDHS dataset to examine the factors that influence the number of children ever born among women aged 35-49 years in Karamoja region. The characteristics of the respondents were discussed according to the results that were obtained from Univariate descriptive tables that were used to show the distribution of respondents by their characteristics while cross tabulation was used in the bivariate tables to assess the relationship between the number of children ever born and the characteristics of the respondents. Pearson’s chi-squared tests were used to ascertain the association between the independent variables and the number of CEB at 95% CI (p-value < 0.05). Results show that the number of children ever born had a statistically significant association with education, type of residence, wealth index and age of the respondent (p-value < 0.05).

The study recommends government and policy makers to invest more in the education sector, integrate teenage friendly programs in the health care, invest in women empowering programs and to also promote male involvement in family planning, sexual and reproductive health programs.