Page 9 - IJPS-9-2

International Journal of
Population Studies Reproductive transition of Ethiopian youths

community-level factors such as community literacy 2.2. Variables and measurements
and level of socioeconomic deprivation were found to be The main outcome variables of the study are the gender gap
predictors of union formation and childbearing. In more in distributions of the reproductive transitions of youths.
affluent communities and communities with higher levels The gender gap in these reproductive indicators is assessed
of education, young people tend to delay sexual activity using the cumulative incidence functions (CIFs) of these
and use contraception more consistently. In contrast, reproductive events over the age of youths. Rather than an
in communities with lower socioeconomic status and instantaneous measure of the risk of reproductive transition,
limited education, young people are more likely to engage CIF gives the proportion of youths that have ever experienced
in risky sexual behavior, have higher rates of unintended an event at any given time (Hinchliffe & Lambert, 2013;
pregnancies, and are less likely to use contraception. Latouche et al., 2013). This property of CIF makes it desirable
Ultimately, community affluence and education can greatly for the gender gap analysis over the instantaneous measure.
impact the reproductive behaviors of youth and their The detailed gender gap decomposition was made for debut
overall health outcomes (Avogo & Somefun, 2019). to sex and parenthood experiences at ages 20 and 25. For the
Holding the perspective that both endowment and transition to first sex, the timing of first sex either prior or
structural effects are needed to evaluate mechanisms of within marriage was considered.
closing the gender gap in the timing of the reproductive Individual and group-level variables (i.e., household
transition, both individual and community-level factors and community level) are considered predictors in the
are used. Therefore, our study aims at comparing the gender gap decomposition analysis. The description of
reproductive transition experiences of male and female these variables is available in the standard recode manual
youths in their life course before age 25. The structural of the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) (ICF, 2018).
elements and underlying characteristics differentials The list of variables, their coding, and descriptions is
that contributed to the gender disparity have also been shown in Table 1.
evaluated using a decomposition analysis framework.
2.3. Data processing and analysis
2. Data and methods
The data management, editing, and analysis were conducted
2.1. Data source using STATA 17.0 (StataCorp, 2021). First, a sex- and
birth cohort-specific cumulative incidence of events
The data for this study were drawn from the two most was computed using the command stcompet (Coviello &
recent Ethiopian Demographic and Health Surveys Boggess, 2004). The command creates CIF in the presence
(EDHS), which were conducted in 2011 and 2016. The of competing risks. For the transition to parenthood,
EDHS was a large-scale cross-sectional survey conducted however, the CIF was computed using the complement of
to offer estimates of key demographic and health variables the Kaplan–Meier estimate. The inter-cohort differences
for the nation as a whole, urban, and rural areas separately, of the cumulative incidence of events were tested using
and each of the nine regions of Ethiopia and two city competing risk regression analysis (He et al., 2016). These
administrations separately. The data were gathered using comparisons were made for CIFs accounting for intra-class
a stratified two-stage cluster sampling technique. The correlation for clusters of enumeration areas. First-order
probability proportional to size technique was used to interactions between birth cohort and sex were tested and
select 624 clusters in the 2011 and 645 clusters in the significant results were retained.
2016 survey. During stage two selection, a full listing of
households in the selected clusters was conducted, and Second, the gender gap in debut to sex and parenthood
28 households were chosen from the list of households experiences at age 20 and 25 was tested for the recent
(CSA [Ethiopia] & ICF International, 2012, 2016). The birth cohort (1985 – 1989). Where significant, the gap
investigation was limited to the Oromia Regional National was decomposed using Blinder Oaxaca decomposition
State because the region is home to a substantial portion for logistic regression model. This analysis was carried
of Ethiopia’s youth population (38.3%), who come from a out using the user-written oaxaca command. During the
variety of cultural backgrounds (Ethiopia Statistics Service, analysis, the command was issued to take into account
2021; Yates, 2011; 2020). Although both male and female the survey design (Jann, 2008; Kaiser, 2015; Rahimi &
data were utilized, the gender gap decomposition analysis Hashemi Nazari, 2021; Sinning et al., 2008). P-value of 5%
is focused only on the data drawn from the 2016 EDHS. was used to declare statistical significance in all analyses
The data utilized for our study are publicly available at the including the decomposition analysis.
following web address (http://www.measuredhs.com/data/ The Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique splits
available-datasets.cfm) and can be accessed free-of-charge. the overall gender gap into two parts. The first component

Volume 9 Issue 2 (2023) 3 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.476