Socio-demographic correlates and trends in the timing of the onset of parenthood among women of reproductive age in Ghana: evidence from three waves of the demographic and health surveys

Background: Childbearing is one of the central events in a woman’s life and the age at which this event occurs has important health, socioeconomic and fertility implications for her. Methods: We used three waves of the Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys (GDHS) from the individual files of married women aged 15 to 49 years old to explore the trends in the timing of the onset of parenthood among women in Ghana. The Cox proportional hazard model was used to assess the effect of socio-demographic factors on the birth experience of women. Results: Results showed the median age of the women increases from 17 years in 1998 to 19 years in 2014. Further, results showed that women with secondary education had 0.67, 0.89- and 0.77-times lower hazard risk of early birth than women without any formal education in 1988, 1998, and 2014 respectively. The hazard risk of early childbirth consistently decreased as age increased in all the years of surveys except in the case of the age group 40-44 in 1988, 1998 and 2014. Conclusions: This study showed that the timing of first childbirth is changing in the direction of a late childbirth regime in Ghana and could facilitate improvement on individual health, job stability and higher level of education. Efforts should be channeled to sensitizing women on the importance of delaying childbearing.