Modeling and Understanding Age Patterns of Fertility in Ethiopia

Mezgebo Gebretsadikan, Mekele University
Krishna Ponnapalli, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Kinfe Abrha, Institute of Population Studies, Mekelle University
Mache Adhana, School of Public Health, Mekelle University

Variations in the shape of ASFR function are produced by variations in a large number of biological and socio-cultural factors. Fitting ASFRS as a function of age using parametric or non-parametric models is a common practice for understanding the typical shape and pattern of age-specific fertility rates. In this paper we demonstrate construction of model fertility table (MFT) for Ethiopia that enables to understand changes in fertility patterns as function of TFR. To fulfill that objective, our study has proposed a third degree polynomial to estimate ASFR for each age group from only information on TFR. Annual ASFR and TFR data series was used from United Nations 2022 publications for Ethiopia. The model based patterns of fertility for Ethiopia and its sub-units were found to be uni-modal and highest for women of age 25-29 indicating that fertility patterns in Ethiopia have a right skewed distribution similar to shapes obtained from survey data. Generally, the constructed MFT was found to be a good fit for Ethiopian fertility data and captures changes in ASFR patterns (shapes) as TFR changes and concluded the model to be applicable both at country and regional levels.

Keywords: Data and Methods, Fertility

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