Child Marriage and Its Impact on Indonesian Women's Fertility (2017 IDHS Data Analysis)

Abstract

Child marriage is still a crucial issue in various developing countries, especially Indonesia. The many health impacts arising from child marriage are a reason to further explore the relationship between child marriage and fertility outcomes for women in Indonesia. This study uses data from the 2017 IDHS with the number of women of childbearing age who meet the criteria as the unit of analysis, namely 23,755 respondents. This research uses a quantitative approach with a cross-sectional design and statistical methods of logistic regression analysis. The dependent variable in this study is fertility outcome (early fertility, repeat childbirth, use of modern contraception, and total fertility). Meanwhile, the independent variable is child marriage (<19 years) and the covariate variable consists of the demographic characteristics of the respondents (age, place of residence, education, work status, wealth index, mass media exposure). The research results showed that 40.9% of respondents had child marriages. Child marriage is significantly associated (p-value <0.001) with early fertility (aOR=0.466), repeat childbirth (aOR=1.202), use of modern contraception (aOR=1.163), and total fertility (aOR=1.217) after being controlled by variables demographic characteristics.