Description
Objectives: To find out what factors at the individual and community levels are linked to continuing postnuptial education and to look into the link between continuing education after marriage and getting antenatal care (ANC) (≥ 4 ANC, a four-contact model; and ≥ 8 ANC, an eight-contact model) and delivery care from trained professionals among young adult women in Bangladesh.
Methods: 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 used to find the factors associated with the continuation of postnuptial education. We also used multivariable logistic regressions to look at the link between postnuptial education continuation and professional maternal healthcare utilization.
Discussion: 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). Results also show that compared to young adult women who did not continue their education after marriage, women who continued were more likely to utilize ≥4 professional ANC (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.60; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.22–2.09), ≥8 professional ANC (AOR = 1.42; 95% CI = 1.01–1.99), and professional delivery care services (AOR = 1.73; 95% CI = 1.28–2.32). This study identified several other individual-level and community-level variables that were found to be associated with the postnuptial continuation of education in Bangladesh. While numerous studies have examined the relationship between maternal education and the utilization of ANC and delivery care services, this endeavor is the first to identify the relationship between women’s post-marriage continuation of education and the utilization of recommended ANC and delivery care services.
Conclusions: The proportion of postnuptial education 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. This study also found that women’s postnuptial education significantly contributes to utilizing maternal healthcare services. The identification of these barriers to postnuptial education helps policymakers develop effective intervention programs to promote women’s educational attainment, which in turn could potentially increase the utilization of professional ANC and delivery care services in Bangladesh.
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