Page 10 - IJPS-9-2

International Journal of
Population Studies Reproductive transition of Ethiopian youths

Table 1. Description of variables and their measurement used in the analysis
Type Name and label Description and measurement Source
Control (categorical) Birth cohort Two groups of birth cohorts, that is, those born in the years 1980 Computed
– 1984 and 1985 – 1989 were used to compare the reproductive
transitions of youths. It was computed from the birth date data of
respondents (v011/mv011)
Grouping or comparison Sex of respondents (sex) This variable was created during the merging of data of male and Computed
(categorical) female youths (0=Male, 1=Female). It is used as a grouping variable
during the decomposition analysis
Independent (categorical) Early initiation of sex (debut This is a binary variable that indicates whether the respondent is Computed
to sex before the age of 20) sexually active or transitioned to marriage before age 20 (0=No,
(v531/mv531) 1=Yes)
Independent (categorical) Educational level (v106/ Highest education level attended. This is a variable that shows the Individual interview
mv106) level of education in the following categories: 0=Not educated, data
1=Educated
Independent (categorical) Exposure to media (Radio/ Exposure to media (radio/TV) of respondents. It was computed Computed from
TV) (v158, v159/mv158, from interview data and recoded as 0=None, 1=Infrequent, individual interview
mv159) 2=Frequent
Independent (categorical) Contraceptive use Current use of any type of modern contraceptive use. It was Computed from
(v313/mv313) computed from interview data and recoded as 0=No, not using a individual interview
modern method, 1=Yes, using a modern method data
Independent (categorical) Household wealth Households falling in the richer or richest wealth quintile. It was Computed from
(v190/mv190) computed from interview data and recoded as 0=No, 1=Yes household data
Independent (numeric) Community-level Youth Percentage of industry-employed youths of all youths in a Computed from
Industry Employment community (enumeration area) household data
Independent (numeric) Community affluence Percentage of the population living in a well-off household in a Computed from
community (enumeration area) household data
Independent (numeric) Community literacy Percentage of population (age-appropriate) with at least a secondary Computed from
level of education in a community (enumeration area) household data

is referred to as the endowment effect; it extracts part identifiers were removed from the final data that was made
of the gender gap that is attributable to differences public.
in characteristics of the two groups. The second part
referred to as the coefficient or structural effect shows the 3. Results
discriminatory effect of the covariates and the effects of The sample constituted 1775 respondents from the
unknown factors (Jann, 2008; Kaiser, 2015). In our analysis, 1980–1984 and 1753 respondents from the 1985–1989
the coefficients for the pooled model were considered the birth cohorts. The recent birth cohort of youths consisted
non-discriminatory coefficients or reference coefficients. It of 1003 females and 750 males, whereas the 1980–1984
should be noted that the decomposition of the gender gap birth cohort had 776 male and 999 female respondents.
in reproductive transition was made from the viewpoint of The 1985–1989 birth cohort of male youths were better
male youths. That is, the female-to-male gender gap was educated, had better exposure to media, and live in well-off
decomposed into components. households than their female contemporaries. Contrarily,
The study made use of data from the Demographic female youths of the recent cohort started their reproductive
and Health Surveys Program. The ICF/ORC Institutional transition earlier and were slightly disadvantaged in terms
Review Board reviewed and approved the methods and of modern contraceptive utilization (Table 2).
questionnaires for standard Demographic and Health The cumulative incidence of the debut to premarital
Surveys. Ethiopian DHS was also ethically approved by the sex (PMS) among the recent birth cohort of male youths
Institutional Review Board offices of Ethiopia’s Ministry has substantially increased over age, with the inter-cohort
of Science and Technology and the Ethiopian Health gap growing progressively starting at age 15 (Figure 1A).
and Nutrition Research Institute. The interviews were In contrast, for female youths, the inter-cohort gap in
conducted with the express permission of the respondents. cumulative incidence of the debut to PMS remained
To protect respondents’ privacy, names and other unique consistent over age. Furthermore, the cumulative

Volume 9 Issue 2 (2023) 4 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.476