Women's Desire to Limit Child-Bearing and its associated factors in rural Ethiopia: A Multilevel Analysis

Introduction: Ethiopia is twelfths and the second most populous country in the world and Africa respectively. The fertility level of Ethiopia is high especially in rural areas. Rapid population growth had a significant negative impact on the economic performance of the country. Women desire to limit child bearing is one of the most important issue that bears directly on population growth. Objective: the aim of this study was to assess women desire to limit childbearing and its associated factor among rural womenMethodology: We have used a crosectional survey dataset of Ethiopian demographic and health survey 2016. A total of 12,019 rural women were included in the study. A mixed effect binary logistic regression was used to identify determinants of women’s desire to limit childbearing. Adjusted odds ratio with its corresponding 95% confidence interval was used to declare statistically significant variables.Result: Women in the age group of 25- 34 years (AOR=1.61, 95% CI=1.28,2.13 ), 35- 49 years (AOR=4.96, 95% CI = 3.64, 6.65), women who had no children (AOR=0.06, 95% CI =0.04, 0.09) , having children 1-3 (AOR=0.29, 95% CI = 0.23, 0.36), married women (AOR=0.45, 95% CI=0.27, 0.75), living in small peripherals region (AOR=0.33,95% CI=0.24, 0.45) and community level poverty (AOR=0.72, 95% CI= 0.57, 0.89) were significantly associated with women’s desire to limit child bearing.Conclusion: there is low desire to limit childbearing in rural Ethiopia. Women who are older and wlarge number of children were more desire to limit child bearing. Whereas those married women, from small peripheral regions and with high community poverty proportion were less likely to limit child bearing. Therefore, providing education about benefit of small family size and providing family planning service may important to enhance women desire to limit their childbearing.