Continuation of education after marriage and its associated factors among young adult women: findings from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2017–2018

OBJECTIVE: To identify the individual and community-level variables associated with the continuation of education among currently married young adult women in Bangladesh. DESIGN: Cross-sectional data extracted from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS), 2017–2018. The BDHS is a stratified cluster sample of households conducted in two and three stages in both rural and urban settings. A multilevel multinomial logistic regression analysis was employed to identify the associated factors. SETTING: Bangladesh. PARTICIPANTS: Currently married young adult women aged 15–29 years (n=4595). PRIMARY OUTCOME: Continuation of education after marriage was measured in the BDHS by asking respondents, ‘Did you continue your studies after marriage?’ with the response options: no; yes, less than a year; yes, for 1–2 years; yes, for 3–4 years; and yes, for 5+ years. RESULTS: Among young adult women, 28.2% continued education after marriage for different durations of years (<1 year to 5+ years). The odds of continuing education after marriage for <1 year (adjusted OR (aOR): 0.68; 95% CI 0.50 to 0.90), 1–2 years (aOR: 0.67; 95% CI 0.47 to 0.96) and ≥5 years (aOR: 0.38; 95% CI 0.17 to 0.85) were lower among women who justified wife beating compared with women who did justify it. Compared with the high-literate community, women from the low-literate community were less likely to continue education after marriage for <1 year (aOR: 0.53; 95% CI 0.42 to 0.66), 1–2 years (aOR: 0.47; 95% CI 0.36 to 0.61), 3–4 years (aOR: 0.32; 95% CI 0.22 to 0.46), and for ≥5 years (aOR: 0.29; 95% CI 0.17 to 0.48). Several other individual-level and community-level variables, such as age at marriage, first birth interval, partner educational status, household wealth index, community economic status and region, were found to be associated with the continuation of education after marriage for different durations. CONCLUSIONS: The proportion of women continuing their education after marriage in this sample is low. This study provides insight into the individual-level and community-level barriers women encounter in continuing their education after marriage. The identification of these barriers helps policy-makers develop effective intervention programmes to promote women’s educational attainment.