Trends of marriage and motherhood trajectories for Bangladeshi women

Entry into marriage and motherhood are subsequent important and natural trajectories of women’s life cycle. Early marriage for female and early childbirth is very widespread in Bangladesh but total fertility shows a decreasing pattern. Changes of age at first marriage (delayed) and age at first birth (at later ages) may be considered as important component of development process. Bangladesh has made slight progress in improving maternal and child health and also in lowering TFR but trends of age at marriage and age at first birth are not well documented. Understanding the trends of those ages and their variations would be helpful for explaining fertility and women’s status. Using data from BDHS-2007, this study uses univariate and bivariate analysis for four cohorts. Mean age at first marriage shows an increasing pattern. Age at first birth increased for women in cohort 1960 compare to women in cohort 1950 but it has been started to decrease for women in consecutive cohorts. For boosting overall age at marriage for female and age at birth in Bangladesh, it should be necessary to promote policies emphasizing women in rural areas and women with lower household wealth status and to support continuation of female’s education.