Correlates of age at first birth among the slum dwellers in Sylhet, Bangladesh

The first birth marks a transition of a woman into motherhood. It contributes substantially to overall fertility of each individual woman. The age at which childbearing begins influences the number of children a woman bears throughout her whole reproductive life span. Thus, the mother's age at first birth influences the total number of births that she might have in her life, which impacts the size, composition, and future growth of the population. Child-bearing at very young ages is common among the poor in Bangladesh. The objective of the present study is to examine the factors associated with age at first birth among slum dwellers of five selected slums (locally, colony) in Sylhet city corporation area, Bangladesh. The data of this study was collected from 520 women aged 14-50 years. The study found that almost 93% of women were married by the ages of 18 years and about 56% of the women have had their first child by the age of 18 years. The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model was used to analyze the factors correlated with women's age at first birth. The regression model is significant with an F-value of 49.48 and can explain 40.4% of the variation in the dependent variable as it is indicated by the R-square.