Reproductive Dimensions of Ethnicity: The Present Situation of Prominent Ethnic Communities of Sylhet District, Bangladesh

Abstract

This article evaluates the contraceptive seeking norms of two well-known ethnic communities of Sylhet district, Bangladesh. A total of 113 (82 Manipuri and 31 Khasia) ever-married ethnic females (15-49 aged) were randomly selected from the respective study area. The information was recorded in a pre-structured questionnaire. Cross tabulation, Chi-square test and Binary logistic regression analysis were performed for analyzing data. In Bi-variate analysis the Chi-square test revealed five factors i.e., having children or not, number of children, electronic devices, each outcome pregnancies from the very first and age at first marriage; were significantly associated with the dependent variable contraceptive use. Binary logistic regression model was employed to identify the consequence of divers’ socio-demographic components on contraceptive use. Among all the important independent variables, "Number of Children" and “Age at first marriage” had significant effect on contraceptive use. One of the most distinguishing traits; from generation to generation ethnic groups specially the Manipuri community is highly motivated to keep their family size small whether a respondent is literate or illiterate, rich or poor or in any other aspects. Finally, this study suggested some policy recommendations but among them specifically emphasized the active roles of their representative leaders for the development of their reproductive norms along with their socio-economic conditions.