Abstract

• This study aims at investigating social, economic and demographic determinants of voluntary childlessness in Myanmar. The data used in this study were secondary data obtained from the Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey (MDHS, 2015-16). The weighted samples of currently married women were 7759 but only 283 voluntary childless women among them were included in this study. Firstly, descriptive statistics was used to point out social, economic and demographic characteristics for currently married women and voluntary childless women in Myanmar. Yangon Region and Rakhine State were showed as the highest percentage of voluntary childlessness. Then, the Pearson Chi-square test was applied to examine the association between social, economic and demographic characteristics and voluntary childlessness. Educational attainment of women and their husbands, woman’s employment status, occupation of women and their husbands, wealth quintile, woman’s age, husband’s age, age at first marriage, marital duration and place of residence were independent variables. There were significantly related to voluntary childlessness. In addition, binary response model such as complementary log-log model was applied to investigate social, economic and demographic determinants of voluntary childlessness. Based on the findings, woman’s educational attainment, husband’s educational attainment, woman’s employment status, woman’s occupation such as skilled manual and unskilled manual, fourth and highest wealth quintiles, age at first marriage and place of residence were more likely and significant determinants to be voluntary childlessness. Woman’s age, husbands at age groups except (35-39), marital duration for 5-9 years were significant determinants and less likely to be voluntary childlessness.