Background characteristics of women
Table 1 shows the distribution of women by selected socio-demographic predictors of age at first marriage in Ethiopia. In this study, a total of 15,683 women were included. From the total women, 11405(72.7%) and 4278(27.3%) were married and unmarried respectively. The majority, 6137(39.1%) of women were married between 15–19 years, 2701(17.2%) women were married too early (under 15 years) and 2567(16.4%) women were married above 20 years. About 7033(44.8%), 5213(33.2%) and 3437(21.9%) women had illiterate, primary and above secondary education respectively. The distribution of women by region were 1682(10.7%) in Tigray, 1128(7.2%) in Afara, 1719(11.0%) in Amhara, 1892(12.1%) in Oromia, 1391(8.9%) in Somalia, 1126(7.2%) in Benishangul, 1849(11.8%) in Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR), 1035(6.6%) in Gambela, 906(5.8%) in Harari, 1131(7.2%) in Dire dawa and 1824(11.6%) in Addis Ababa. Nearly 5348(34.1%) and 10335(65.9%) women were lived in urban and rural parts of Ethiopia respectively. Of the total 5123(32.7%) & 4223(26.9%) household had radio and television respectively. Distribution by religion shows that 6413(40.9%), 91(0.6%), 2814(17.9%), 6209(39.6%), and 156(1.0%) women were Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and other respectively. The majority, 5940(37.9) % and 7741(49.4%) of the women were in the poor and rich wealth index groups respectively. Only 2002(12.8%) of the women were in the middle wealth index group. Table 1 also showed that 7591(48.4%) of women had their first sex below 18 years; 4371(27.9%) of women had their first sex at 18 years and above, and only 3721(23.7%) of the women had not initiated sexual activity. From the total women, 7638(48.7%) of them had work, while 8045(51.3%) of them had not work. In this study 6029(38.4%) of the household had <5 family members and 9654(61.6%) of the household had ≥5 family members. Median age at first marriage was two years older among urban women than rural women, it varies by region from 15 years among women in Amhara to 20 years among women in Addis Ababa The median age at first marriage increases with increasing education, from 16 years among women with no education to 19 years among women with more than a secondary education. A one year older increases of age at first marriage was observed among women with rich wealth index group than women with poor wealth index group.
Kaplan-Meier estimates for overall all age at first marriage in Ethiopia
The overall estimates of the Kaplan-Meier survivor function showed that, the highest probability of getting age at first marriage were occurred in the early age, whereas the survival function was declined when the age of women increases, suggested that, the probability of getting marriage were lower in the later age of women (Figure 1).
Cox Proportional Hazards Regression Model Results
Univariate analyses were done to assess the association between all important predictors and age at first marriage. The overall categorical variables with a p-value of <0.25 at the univariate analysis were included into multivariable Cox proportional hazard model in which hazard ratio with 95% confidence intervals were estimated to identify the predictors of age at first marriage. P-values less than 0.05 were employed to declare the statistical significance. These are detailed below (table 2).
The estimated hazard ratio for women with above secondary education was 0.9(95% CI: 0.80–0.92), compared to non-educated (reference category). It was found that the risk of getting first marriage was 0.9 times lower than women with non-educated.
Compared to Addis Ababa (the reference category), the estimated hazard ratios for regions; Tigray, Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Somali, Benishangul, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR), Gambela, Harari and Drie dawa were 1.6(95% CI: 1.43–1.75), 1.6(95% CI: 1.43–1.78), 1.6(95% CI: 1.46–1.79), 1.3(95% CI: 1.18–1.45), 1.4(95% CI: 1.26–1.57), 1.4(95% CI: 1.25–1.55), 1.4(95% CI: 1.29–1.60), 1.5(95% CI: 1.30–1.62), 1.2(95% CI: 1.10–1.35) and 1.3(95% CI: 1.20–1.47) respectively. It showed that the risk of getting early marriage in all regions were higher compared with Addis Ababa.
The hazard of getting first marriage was 1.1 times higher in rural women’s than women who lived in urban, since the estimated hazard ratio for women who lived in rural area was 1.1(95% CI: 1.03–1.18), compared to women who lived in urban (reference category).
The estimated hazard ratio for Muslim women was 1.1(95% CI:1.0–1.2), compared to Orthodox (the reference category). It was found that the hazard of early marriage was more pronounced among Muslim than Orthodox or the risk of getting first marriage for Muslim was 1.1 times higher than Orthodox.
It was found that the risk of getting first marriage for women who had first sex less than 15 years old was 2.6 times higher than women had first sex in between 15 to 19 years old, whereas the risk of getting first marriage for women who had first sex above 20 years old was 0.36 times lower than women who had first sex in between 15 to 19 years old, since the estimated hazard ratio for women who had first sex less than 15 years old and women who had first sex above 20 years old were 2.6(95% CI: 2.44–2.69) and 0.36(95% CI: 0.35–0.39), compared to women who had first sex in between 15 to 19 years old (the reference category) respectively.
The risk of getting early marriage was 1.1 times higher in households with five and more family members than households with less than five family members, since the estimated hazard ratio for five and more household family members was 1.1(95% CI: 1.01–1.12), compared to less than five household family members.