Young People with Access to Reproductive Health Services in Nepal

More than one-third of Nepal’s populationis still young. In Nepal, 23.62% of the population is categorized as adolescents (10-19 years), 19.98% as youth (15-24 years) and 32.49% as young people (10-24 years) (CBS, 2002).Early marriages, which are sill prevalent in Nepal, cause young females to conceive at a very early age. But, due to lack of reproductive health services, young females do not get the required health care and suffer from weak health conditions. Moreover, if a young unmarried female happens to conceive, then the young female may opt to abort the child due to societal, cultural and religious reasons. In both scenarios, lack of reproductive health services negativelyimpacts young females.

This paper aims to identify age patterns of young female’s first marriage and motherhood, and to report how accessible reproductive health services are to young people. The data source is Nepal Adolescent and Youth Survey-2010 and 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey.Thus, early marriage, early child and illegal child are already serious problems in Nepal. And now, in addition, there is insufficient access to reproductive health services, which has also become a major problem in Nepal.