Census Analytical Report - Uganda Bureau of Statistics

The 2002 Population and Housing CensusPostsecondaryEducationreducesfertility levelsby half.Figure 5.3 shows that women without any education and those with only primaryeducation reported the highest level of fertility at around 7.3. This means thateducation starts having an effect on fertility behavior only at secondary level. Thewomen with secondary level of education reported considerably lower fertility of 5.2children, and even lower (3.4 children) for women with tertiary education. This findingsuggests that allowing women to realise their full education potential will cut Uganda’sfertility by nearly half. Fertility does not show much variation across religious groups.Figure 5.3: Total Fertility Rates by Socio-economic Characteristics of Women9877.37.3 7.36.9 7.0 7.0 7.0654.75.243.43210RuralUrbanNo EducationPrimarySecondaryPost secondaryCatholicsAnglicanMoslemsOthers5.3 ParityParity refers to the total number of live births a woman has had in her lifetime. Table5.4 further confirms the phenomenon of early childbearing. Among adolescents aged15 – 19 years, 30 percent had already had a child. Similarly, among women aged 20– 24 years, 80 percent had already had a child with one third having had more than 2children. Worth noting is the fact that nearly half of the women in the 45–49 agegroup had had 8 children or more (higher than the TFR). The mean number ofChildren Ever Born (MCEB) for women aged 45 – 49 was 7.2. This is close to theobserved TFR implying that there has not been a major change in the fertility behaviorover a 35 year period.48