Socio-economic Differentials in Adolescent Fertility in Kenya: Evidence From the 2014 KDHS

Abstract

This study aimed to quantify the intensity of repeated adolescent pregnancy in Kenya. The main research objective was to identify adolescents who undergo repeat pregnancy during the adolescence period and their characteristics. The main data source was the 2014 KDHS dataset, and the study population was women aged 15-24 years. The analysis was based on the number of births to individual women during adolescence which is count data. These births were cross classified by select characteristics of the adolescents. Poisson regression model was used to determine differentials in adolescent fertility. The final analysis was to identify differentials in the incidence of repeat pregnancy which involved a multinomial logistic regression. About 9.2% of the adolescent births obtained from women aged 15-24 were repeat adolescent pregnancies. Chances for repeat adolescent pregnancy appeared to decline with wealth index. The propensity for repeat adolescent pregnancy was higher among women with no or low education compared to those with higher education. Never married adolescents were less likely to experience repeat adolescent pregnancy compared to ever married adolescents. Included in the National Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy should be a special program for monitoring the incidence of repeat adolescent pregnancy and prevention of the same. The Ministry of Education should also speed up the adoption of age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education into the school curriculum. Further research should be conducted to find out whether repeat adolescent pregnancy occurs by choice or not and to identify incidences of rapid repeat pregnancies.