Page 14 - IJPS-9-2

International Journal of
Population Studies Reproductive transition of Ethiopian youths

societies is more likely to be passed on to adolescent is also recommended to unveil unknown factors that could
girls once they become sexually active than adolescent contribute to the gender disparity in the transition to
boys. Similar findings were reported from a study done premarital sex or marriage.
among Zimbabwean adolescent women on modern
contraceptive use stating that the odds of contraceptive Acknowledgments
use among adolescent women reduced with an increase in The authors would like to thank the Ethiopian Statistical
community literacy level of women (Ngome & Odimegwu, Services (former Central Statistics Agency of Ethiopia)
2014). Further, it had been reported that exposure to and Measure DHS for providing the data used for this
mass media increases the use of contraception as a result manuscript.
of exposure to family planning messages and results in
delayed parenthood (Ngome & Odimegwu, 2014; Petroni Funding
et al., 2017). The result reveals that well-informed female None.
and male youths did not have an equal transition rate to
parenthood. This differential effect of media exposure calls Conflict of interest
for targeting female adolescents in reaching information
regarding family planning and encouraging the use of it The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
once they are sexually active. Author contributions
4.4. Strengths and limitations Conceptualization: Tariku Dejene, Eshetu Gurmu
Studies that inform our understanding of reproductive Data curation: Tariku Dejene
behavior focused on individual and community-level Formal analysis: Tariku Dejene
factors without reference to the structural effects of Methodology: Tariku Dejene, Eshetu Gurmu
these factors. Hence, this study attempts to extend Writing – original draft: Tariku Dejene
previous works by decomposing the gender gap in the Writing – review & editing: Tariku Dejene, Eshetu Gurmu
reproductive transitions among youths into inequalities in Ethics approval and consent to participate
and structural effects of variables. The study focused only
on individual and community-level socioeconomic and Secondary data from the 2011 and 2016 EDHS were used
reproductive-related factors to decompose the gender gap in this study. The methodologies and questionnaires for
in the reproductive transition of youths. EDHS data were Demographic and Health Surveys were reviewed and
collected using an event history approach and the accuracy approved by the ICF/ORC Institutional Review Board. In
of information depends on the respondent’s ability to recall addition, the study protocols obtained ethical approval
the sequence of events that may be affected by memory from the Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Technology’s
lapse (Neal & Hosegood, 2015). As a result, caution is Institutional Review Board offices and the Ethiopian
advised when interpreting the results. Moreover, event Health and Nutrition Research Institute. Interviews were
history data are collected for those who were available conducted after gaining verbal consent from respondents.
at the time of the survey. As a result, the analysis did not
take into account or adequately represent the reproductive Consent for publication
experiences of deceased and migrant youths. The final data did not contain respondents’ names or other
distinctive identifiers to protect their privacy. Thus, no
5. Conclusions consent was required as the analysis was based on publicly
The results demonstrate that the gender gap in reproductive available dataset.
transition was wider for adolescents. Family and institutional
support to keep adolescent girls in school is required to Availability of data
curb the early transition of female adolescents to sex or DHS data are publicly available for use free-of-charge and
marriage and motherhood. In addition, supporting youth- can be obtained on request at the following web address:
friendly family planning services in terms of advertising https://dhsprogram.com/data/available-datasets.cfm
family planning methods and addressing the contraceptive
demand of sexually active adolescent girls are issues to be References
given the utmost priority. Community interventions that Abera, M., Nega, A., Tefera, Y., & Gelagay, A.A. (2020). Early
target deprived communities and those with pro-natal marriage and women’s empowerment: The case of child-
norms can help reduce the structural components of the brides in Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia. BMC
gender gap in the reproductive transition. Further research International Health and Human Rights, 20(1): 30.

Volume 9 Issue 2 (2023) 8 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.476