Factors Affecting Sterilization in Bangladesh: An Application of Failure Time Survival Model

In Bangladesh, the short term methods especially the pill is gaining popularity with respect to long term methods, such as sterilization but it is worthwhile to mention that female sterilization unintentionally shortens the length of fecund life span of female and thus total fertility. This study has been conducted to identify the effects of some selected socioeconomic and demographic covariates on female age at sterilization, by applying Weibull regression model using data from standard 2004 Bangladesh DHS. Weibull survival models with and without Gamma heterogeneity have been used to find out the effect of different co-variates on the timing of age of sterilization. The findings show that the propensity of sterilization is higher among urban women than rural women in Bangladesh. The average failure time for sterilization is higher among older women in than their younger counterparts. The hazard model analyses demonstrate that education, religion, age at marriage and residence are the important significant covariates in explaining early timing of sterilization. The study shows that a significant amount of heterogeneity is present in the population with respect to timing of age at sterilization even controlling some demographic and socio-economic variables.