PhD Thesis

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Start date: 2003End date: 2009

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    Modeling of Demographic Parameters of Bangladesh - An Empirical Forecasting
    (University of Rajshahi, 2003) Islam, Md. Rafiqul; Islam, Md. Nurul
    Bangladesh is a developing country with an accelerate population growth. The government or Bangladesh has long been trying to control its population and has introduced various programs after its independence. But, the government has already foiled to control its population for the lack of correct information about the national based demographic parameters. Many researchers have been done to provide the information about the demographic parameters of Bangladesh. But, only a few of them are on national based. Some of their work has been concentrated in the area or fertility. Some in the mortality etc. But very few or those covered all the demographic parameters of Bangladesh. Thus, the national planners me not in a position to chalk out the development plan for the shortage of reliable national based demographic parameters. Someone should make in attempt to provide these parameters using national based data as early as possible........................................
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    Birth Spacing, Breastfeeding Pattern and Child Survival in Bangladesh
    (University of Rajshahi, 2009) Akter, Shamima; Rahman, J.A.M. Shoquilur; Abedin, Samad
    Birth spacing is a major determinant for evaluating family building process due to its direct relationship with fertility. The mean duration of successive birth intervals is obviously related to the fertility rate, the longer the interval consequently the lower the fertility. Breast feeding and post-partum amenorrhea (PPA) have also been a matter of rapidly growing interest, as they are important not only for maternal and child health but also for its fertility reducing effect through PPA. Hence for a complete understanding of the process of family building, in Bangladesh, it is imperative to analyze the birth spacing, breastfeeding pattern and PPA as well as their differentials and determinants in context of female population of Bangladesh. This study also examines the influence of birth spacing on child survival. The data used for the completion of this work, is extracted from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) conducted in 2003-2004. The BDHS recorded enormous data on complete birth history of 11440 ever married women of the age group 10-49, which are very useful for studying birth interval. The study considers first to fifth birth intervals as it covers most of the range of fertility experience of Bangladeshi women. Since data on breastfeeding were available only for the last child, the study of breastfeeding and post partum amenorrhea is based on information for last birth. The study reveals that the distribution of first to fifth birth interval is largely positively skewed lying somewhere between 12 to 23 months for first births and for subsequent birth in the duration 24 to 35 months. Both Chi-square statistic and Cox proportional hazard model demonstrate that age, women age at marriage, couples education, respondent work status, residence, socio-economic status, contraceptive use and watch TV have significant influence on first birth interval but subsequent birth showed miscellaneous results. Moreover, survival status of previous child showed highly significant effect on second to fifth birth intervals. But the variable religion has no significant orientation at all. To study the quantum and tempo of fertility life table technique is employed and demonstrates that the mean birth interval for marriage to first birth is 24 months but for subsequent birth the interval lies between ranges 30 to 32 months. The differential analysis of quantum and tempo of fertility reveals that educated women have shorter first but longer subsequent birth interval. Urban mother have shorter first birth interval is lower but longer subsequent birth interval is higher than rural mother. The birth interval is higher (25 months) when age at marriage is less than or equal to 15 years, but lower (21 months) when age at marriage is 15 years and above. But for higher order births age at marriage has no differential effect. The summarized results speculate that child survival status affects timing of birth not only for first two or three orders but also for higher orders, but at a smaller pace, for women whose previous child is death birth interval is much lower than those whose previous child is alive. Determinants and differential of breastfeeding and post partum amenorrhea are also performed using life table analysis and Cox Proportional Hazard model. The results indicates that breastfeeding is virtually universal (98.3 percent) and homogeneously prolonged in Bangladesh. The mean duration of breastfeeding is about 32 months. To see the effects of socio-demographic variables on breastfeeding we fitted three model- the first one to see the effect of demographic variables, second one to see the effects of socio­economic variables and lastly to see the combined effect of these two variables. The study results divulge that demographic variables have more influence than other variables. Finally the proportional hazard analysis has identified that administrative division, Religion, maternal education, working status, current age, age at marriage, parity; Contraceptive use and place of delivery have significant effect on the duration of breast feeding. The overall mean duration of PPA was found to be 8.51 months and the length increases with increase in the parity. The mean length of PPA significantly varies by place of residence, region, mother's education, work status, sex of previous child, breastfeeding status, parity, delivery status and age of mother. The Cox proportional hazard model suggested that duration of breastfeeding has strong positive influence on duration of PPA among all included explanatory variables. The study also analyzed the relationship between the length of preceding birth interval and child survival and their effect on age specific probability of death of index child. The preceding birth interval and child survival are significantly correlated and probability of survival is much lower for less preceding birth interval (<12 months) and also a lesser extent at higher birth interval (84+ months). To see the effect of preceding birth interval and socio-demographic factors on child survival status four separate logistic regression models (neonatal, post neonatal, mortality between 12-35 months and child mortality) are fitted. These models reveal that among the socio-demographic variables, preceding birth interval, breast feeding status and mother's education has strong significant effect on mortality but the variables birth order and mother's age at birth has little or no significant effect. Therefore, the study results emphasize that it is need to encourage women to have longer birth interval, not only to limit family size, but also to guarantee good health of mother and the child. Education is a consistently a dominant factor and such formal and informal education should encourage women to differ marriage and prolong breast feeding.
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    Determinants of Induced Abortion and Reproductive Health in Some Selected Areas of Rajshahi
    (University of Rajshahi, 2007) Mostofa, Md. Golam; Hoque, Md. Aminul
    In Bangladesh, advancement of medical science and easy access to modern medical facilities, the death rates especially child mortality have declined significantly during the last few decades. On the other hand women's ability to control their fertility is limited. Though family planning methods are available everywhere in the country, a woman may not use them because of financial constraints, personal beliefs, opposition family members or concern about the perceived adverse effects on health or future fertility. Fertility and mortality is not accompanied with each other. As a result population growth is becoming unmanageable and have resulted serious challenges to the achievement of national objectives and targets with regard to socio-economic development. Human reproductive processes are mainly influenced by contraception and sometimes by induced abortion where contraceptive practice is less use effective. Common sense and an elementary understanding of the biological determinants of human reproduction indicate that contraception and induced abortion represent alternative means of achieving the same aggregate level of fertility in a particular population. But induced abortion is harmful and sometimes dangerous to maternal health. So the levels of contraceptive use and the incidence of induced abortion continue to provoke heated discussion. An induced abortion is the deliberate termination of pregnancy by artificially inducing the loss before the viability of the fetus. Pregnancy is a critical phase in women's life and for obvious reason it cannot be avoided. However, for smooth management of health, sometimes pregnancy is required to be avoided by contraceptive use or terminating pregnancy to save the life of mother from the unwanted pregnancy in the initial stage of pregnancy. Generally, when family planning measures fail, the outcome of the ultimate baby make the family size larger otherwise induced abortion is done to keep the family size unchanged. In Bangladesh, a study reveals that among the unintended pregnancies that are due to contraceptive failure 31 percent undergo menstrual regulation (MR), 4.9 percent seek for induced abortion and remaining 55 percent gives unintended birth (Akhter, 1997). Abortion, legal or illegal, is being practiced in all most all countries of the world. However, variation in the level of abortion across countries depends not only on legality of the procedure but also on religious restrictions, cultural acceptance and also awareness about the odd consequences of abortion effect. According to the Penal Code of 1860, induced abortion is illegal in Bangladesh except to save life of the mother (Bhiwandiwala et al. 1982). Since the late 1970s, the law allows menstrual regulation in the early stages before pregnancy status is clinically confirmed (Akhter and Rider, 1983; Ali et al. 1978). Such interpretation of the law, along with the decline in the desired family size and availability of menstrual regulation services has contributed to an increase in the incidence of abortion (Dixon-Muller 1988). Before the introduction of MR practice in 1970s in Bangladesh, when the law was strict, induced abortions were usually performed either by self or untrained indigenous practitioners which was very serious for maternal health. For this reason the MR practice was allowed legally and consequently menstrual regulation service has become available both in the public and the private sectors. The government managed health facilities providing abortion services are: Family Welfare Centre, Upazila Health Complex and District Hospital while non-government facilities are private clinics located mainly in cities and towns. Despites all these facilities, huge number of abortions are still being performed either by the client herself or with the help of indigenous practitioners (Ahmed et al. 1998; Ahmed et al. 1996), and many of those who sought modern abortion facilities had experienced traditional method initially (Bhuiya et al. 1999; Caldwell et al. 1999)……………………………
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    Contribution of Non Government Organizations(NGO) in Human Resource Development(HRD)of Bangladesh: A Comparative Study of Five Selected NGO s
    (University of Rajshahi, 2006) Ali, M. Korban; Ali, M. Korban
    The world is heading faster towards modern trade, commerce, industry and advancement of technology. Some of the countries already have attained vast economic growth. Despite these, there is prevailing a remarkable sign of illiteracy, 100 malnutrition and poverty around the world. According to UN billion of people were suffering from illiteracy, 50 million people were not getting chances of having primary education, 55 million people were passing their days either in un-fed or half-fed condition, 100 billions of people of the world were below the poverty level. Most of them were the resident of developing countries like Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and the African countries [Shelly, MR, 1999]. One of the ways to solve the above problems is to develop their human resources as early as possible. Again the world is also facing the challenge of open market economy. In order to face this challenge the developing countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan etc have to improve the qualities of human resources. Like other developing countries, Bangladesh can develop its human resources by improving its (1) Education(2) Health care and (3) Economic activities. This type of work of Human Resource Development (HRD) can be done by government or non-government organizations (NGOs) or institutions and individuals. Sir1ce the task accelerating the works of HRD is very important. So it is needed to know the contributions of all the governmen1 and non-government organizations. 3t t with our limited scope, an attempt has been made to study the contributions of some (five) of the selected non- government organizations (NGOs). The concept and idea of human resource development (HRD) was evolved in USA [UNDP, 1994, pp-90]. First the idea came as the topics of class room discussion at the George Washington University in 1969 and it took the formal shape in the American Society for training and development conference [UNDP, 1994. pp91]. At present the concept is a widely accepted mechanism and reality in the field of management and control of human resources. With the passage of time the 1 arm HRD system of management 1s getting popularity and usefulness both in developing and developed countries of the world for attainment of the organizational and developmental goals. Human Resource Development (HRD) is a process by which workforce of an organization is given full co-operation to develop them in one ham1 and on the other hand to develop the environment in which manpower can work effecti'1ely in continuous and organized manner. The resources of an organization can be divided into two broad divisions; one is material resources and other is human resources. Material resources cannot run on its own. But the human resource can use and manage the material resources properly for the well being of the human society. The human resource can be run on its own and again human resource can develop human resources. Thus human resource can run both material resources and human resources. Human resource is the asset, power, spirit and guiding forces. P. gain human resource is a means of support to win goals of an organization. Thus it is regarded as the prime component of the Human Resource Development (HRD) system of management. In fact, HRD system of management helps the human resources to acquire the capabilities to perform, develop, manage, and organize and establd1 organizational culture, team work motivation professional skills and proficiency and congenial supervisors and subordinate relationship for smooth and effective performance of the organization. There are five functional areas of management namely production procurement, finance, marketing and personnel. HRD will regulate all these function!3 1•1 effective style and method. HRD system of management looks into the creation of ar1 environment of trust, mutuality and collaboration ie inter personal trust, confidence, faithfulness, mutual understanding, mutual help, mutual feedback, group dynamics and team spirit. This climate calls for openness, which can be generated through the t.se and application of HRD mechanism. To assess the volume of human resources development of a country or a region some sorts of tools were needed. Fortunately the first Human Development Report (UNDP, 1990 introduced a new way of measuring human development by an Index called Human Development Index (HDI) .It was constructed by combining the indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and income into composite human development index (HDI). The report acknowledged that no single index could ever completely capture such & complex concept. It acknowledged too that the I:,JI would remain subject to improvements, corrections and refinements, both as a result of a growing awareness of its deficiencies and to accommodate criticisms and suggestions from academics and policy makers. It is also to be emphasized that the HDI is ::1ot intended to replace the other detailed socio-economic indicators, these are essential for a fuller understanding of individual countries. The Human Development Report - 1993 (UNDP, 1993) constructed separate HDI is not for different groups of five countries. One innovative feature of the HDI is the way its components are combined. Each indicator is constructed in different countries Life expectancy is in years of life ii) schooling is in ears of schooling iii) income in purchasing power adjusted dollars and iv) adult literary as a percentage. To combine the indicators, the range of values for each one is put into a sale of 0 to 1, where 0 is the minimum and 1 is the maximum.