Analyzing Bongaarts model and its applications in the context of Bangladesh

Abstract

Achieving appropriate fertility rate is important for any country. In spite of having a higher fertility rate than desired Bangladesh has been able to reduce it in a remarkable extent in the recent years. This decline in fertility has created much interest among researchers, policy makers and academics because such dramatic change in fertility has occurred in Bangladesh without a substantial improvement in the socio- economic status, health conditions and other factors which are usually required for fertility decline. This paper provides a critical review of the principal proximate determinants of fertility and their fertility inhibiting effects using the 2007 (Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey) BDHS data. The analysis has been done following the Bongaarts framework for proximate determinants of fertility. The analysis shows that contraception appears as the most prominent determinant in fertility reduction in Bangladesh, followed by marriage, lactational infecundability and induced abortion. The analysis reveals that although the fertility reducing effect of the marriage variable is increasing, its effect is offset by the declining trend in lactational amenorrhoea period. A review of these two variables suggests that their effect cannot be raised much due to the socio-economic and cultural reasons prevailing in the country. Thus the use of contraception will be the dominant factor for further reduction in fertility. The national goal of attaining a replacement level of fertility could be expected to be achieved if the rate of contraception use can be increased up to a certain level. The study also shows that Bangladesh is in the third phase of transition of proximate determinants of fertility and is moving quickly towards the fourth or final phase. The findings of the study demonstrate that the policy implications that can be drawn in order to achieve further fertility decline are: campaigning for further increase in the age at marriage of women, especially in rural areas, encouraging efforts to increase the quality of contraceptive use to induce higher use-effectiveness that will lead to greater contribution to fertility decline, efforts should be made to increase the use of sterilization for those who have reached their desired fertility and want to limit further births; and providing more information to women about the cost and benefits of a longer duration of breastfeeding and use of colostrums.