paper · doi:10.20372/nadre:17345
Introduction: Ethiopia ranks twelfth globally and second in Africa by population size. High fertility<br> rates, especially in rural areas, contribute to rapid population growth, impacting the country’s<br> economy. The decision of women to control the number of children they have is a crucial factor<br> influencing population growth and contributing to elevated health risks for both women and<br> children.<br> Objective: the purpose of this study was to assess women desire to limit childbearing and its<br> associated factor among rural women in Ethiopia.<br> Methods: A cross-sectional survey dataset of Ethiopian demographic and health survey 2016 was<br> used for this study. A total of 12,019 rural women were included in the study. A multilevel binary<br> logistic regression was used to identify the predictors of women’s desire to limit childbearing. The<br> adjusted odds ratio with respective 95 % confidence interval was used to declare statistically<br> significant variables.<br> Result: In rural Ethiopia, 33.04 % of women had a desired to limit their childbearing. Women in<br> the age group of 25–34 years (AOR = 1.61, 95 % CI = 1.28,2.13), 35–49 years (AOR = 4.96, 95 %<br> CI = 3.64, 6.65), had no children (AOR = 0.06, 95 % CI = 0.04, 0.09), having children 1–3 (AOR<br> = 0.29, 95 % CI = 0.23, 0.36), married (AOR = 0.45, 95 % CI = 0.27, 0.75), living in small<br> peripherals region (AOR = 0.33,95 % CI = 0.24, 0.45) and community level poverty (AOR = 0.72,<br> 95 % CI = 0.57, 0.89) were significant predictors of women’s desire to limit the number of<br> children they bear.<br> Conclusion: In rural Ethiopia, there is a limited inclination to control childbearing. Older women<br> and those with higher number of children express a stronger desire to limit childbearing.<br> Conversely, married women, from smaller peripheral regions and those residing in areas with a<br> higher community poverty rate are less likely to have a desire to limit childbearing. Thus, promoting education on the advantages of smaller family sizes and offering family planning services<br> could be crucial in fostering women’s willingness to limit their childbearing.