FEMALE AUTONOMY AND FERTILITY PATTERN AMONG WOMEN WORKING IN FORMAL SECTOR IN KATHMANDU VALLEY

Background: Fertility rate is declining more among women with higher education around the world. This may be due to number of years spent for achieving higher degree, choice of work and age at marriage. With growing autonomy of urban women and late age at marriage increases high risk pregnancy and declines number of children leading to decrease in young population. So, this study was done to explore the fertility pattern and associated factors among working women at formal sectors. Methods: An observational study was done among women working at formal sectors within Kath­mandu valley. A respondent driven sampling was used to achieve total 101 sample size. The study period was October and November 2019. Results: Median age of the participants was 40 and median age at marriage was 26.62 years. The association between level of education and age at marriage was statistically significant. The median age of pregnancy of the participants were 27 years and 58.4% of women had only one live child. Average number of desired children was 1.69 whereas actual number of children was 1.32. The gap between desired and number of children is statistically significant. Only 35.6% reported to have used some form of contraceptive devices as the measure of family planning. Conclusions: Fertility behavior of working women is not completely influenced by their working status except for higher age at marriage, pregnancy and desired number of children which in long term may affect in the growth of country.