Abstract

Fertility is a crucial factor affecting population growth in developing countries with high birth rates, such as Egypt. After an increase in fertility rates in Egypt in 2008, peaking at 3.5 births per woman in 2014, the rates started decreasing again in 2017, with the sharpest decline in 2021 at 2.85 births per woman. This study aims to identify the main factors associated with fertility in Egypt using the most current available data from the Egypt Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS).

The total fertility rate (TFR) is a key measure of fertility that can be calculated from the sample data. It represents the average number of children a woman is expected to have during her reproductive lifetime. In addition to TFR, the Parity Progression Ratios (PPRs) are used to adjust the total fertility rate. PPRs reflect the percentages of women who progress from their first marriage to their first birth, from the first birth to the second, and so on. These ratios are estimated using a discrete-time survival model.

Modeling fertility presents challenges due to many women not having completed their childbearing yet (right censoring). Discrete-time survival analysis is used to model the timing and occurrence of childbearing while considering right censoring. It allows for the inclusion of women at all stages of their reproductive lives and the incorporation of time-varying predictors in the analysis.

To examine the impact of socioeconomic and maternal factors on the occurrence and timing of births in Egypt, this study employs a discrete-time survival model, known as the complementary log-log model. Then we estimated the total fertility rate (TFR) based on parity progression ratios (PPRs). This study concluded that PPRs tend to decrease with increasing birth intervals as education increases and tend to be higher with shorter birth intervals in rural areas than in urban areas.