Regional Variation in Age at First Marriage Among Women of Reproductive Age in Nigeria

Olakiitan  Ibukun Adeniyi; Ruth Olonijolu Ifeoluwa; Vivian Ifeyinwa  Omekam; Akinrefon  Adesupo Adeoye; Mercy Oladuti Olubimpe

Dr. Olakiitan Ibukun Adeniyi Department of Statistics, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8115-9800
Ifeoluwa Ruth Olonijolu African Center of Meteorological Application for Development (ACMAD), Niamey-Plateau, Niger
Dr. Omekam Ifeyinwa Vivian Department of Statistics, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5563-4380
Dr. Akinrefon Adesupo Adeoye Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Modibbo Adama University, Yola https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1628-3637
Dr. Olubimpe Mercy Oladuti Department of Statistics, School of Physical Sciences, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9852-2066

Keywords: heterogeneity, cluster, random effects, AIC, age at first marriage

Abstract

The society and the environment have great influence on the attitudes and the decisions made by her residents. The age at which a woman enters marriage to some extent is influenced by the society and the environment she lives in and some other socio-demographic factors. This study employs a hierarchical survival analysis which account for state differences in the age at first marriage among Nigerian women using the dataset from 2018 National Demographic Health survey. The Cox model with two independent random effects was used to provide parameter estimates as well as estimates of the random effects variances at all the levels. It was found that state heterogeneity had the highest contribution and location of residence within the state also contributed to the differences in the timing of marriage. The study also revealed that region, location of residence, wealth index, respondent age at first sex, birth cohort, religious affiliation and educational qualification of the women were significant factors in determining the age at first marriage.

Author Biographies

Dr. Olakiitan Ibukun Adeniyi, Department of Statistics, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria

Olakiitan Ibukun Adeniyi is a Lecturer at Department of Statistics University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria. She holds a BSc., MSc. and a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Ilorin, Kwara State Nigeria. Her research areas include but not limited survival analysis, Biostatistics and Modelling. Her current research interest is on antenatal care among Nigeria women with a specific focus on studying the trend over a period of time.

Ifeoluwa Ruth Olonijolu, African Center of Meteorological Application for Development (ACMAD), Niamey-Plateau, Niger

Ifeoluwa Ruth Olonijolu is a research intern at African Center of Meteorological Application for Development (ACMAD), Niamey, Niger. She has a master’s degree in Mathematical science, Climate major from African Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Kigali, Rwanda and also bagged her BSc. in Statistics from the University of Ilorin, Kwara state, Nigeria. Her research area includes but not limited to: Climate (climate change, climate resilience, extreme events), Agriculture (Crop Production), Timeseries analysis, survival analysis, and data science. Her current research is on data analysis of Climate resilience to Agriculture in considering the climatological start of agricultural season in Africa countries.

Dr. Omekam Ifeyinwa Vivian, Department of Statistics, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria

Omekam Ifeyinwa Vivian is a Statistics Lecturer in the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. She is purpose-driven with research focus in Statistical Modelling, Distribution Theory, and Statistical Quality Control. Her current research is on generalization of distribution and retrospective analysis of some economic variables using Statistical Quality Control techniques. Impacting Knowledge remains her goal as well as capacity building.

Dr. Akinrefon Adesupo Adeoye , Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Modibbo Adama University, Yola

Akinrefon Adesupo Adeoye is a Lecturer at Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Modibbo Adama University, Yola. I hold a BSc, MSc and a PhD in Statistics, all from the University of Ilorin, Kwara State Nigeria. My Research areas are Biostatistics, Stochastic processes, Categorical data analysis and Epidemiology. Currently, I'm researching on Stochastic models for COVID-19 dynamics with changing susceptibility.

Dr. Olubimpe Mercy Oladuti, Department of Statistics, School of Physical Sciences, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria.

Mercy Oladuti is a Lecturer at the Department of Statistics in Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria. She is a team player and a member of Biostatistics research team in the department. Her research focus is in the application of statistics to biological, medical, agricultural, and environmental sciences in terms of modelling biological and medical data. Her research interest centres on the modelling of time to event data and clustered survival time data with competing risks.