BAYESIAN SURVIVAL ANALYSIS OF TIME TO EARLY MARRIAGE AMONG YOUNG WOMEN IN KERSA DISTRICT, EAST HARARGHE

Abstract

Early married age women are children who are married below the age of 18 years. The main objective of this research study was to identify factors that influence the survival time of early marriage among young women in Kersa District, Eastern Hararghe by using the Bayesian survival model. The Bayesian analysis include prior information about the parameter of model that leads to more efficient and more flexible with all information about the parameters. The data for this study was secondary data that have taken from the Kersa Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) of early-married young women as events and other child girls that not married still their 18 years old and withdraw from the study Kersa district without married at age of their 18 years are censored. In this study the data has used was from the 2018-2021 years data. Out of 44,405 young girls in Kersa district, the women who married early were 1,618 and considered as censored were 42,787. The result of the study shows that early marriage was being practiced in Kersa district especially in a rural area of the district meaning the women who live in sem_urban are less affected by early marriage. Of the total early married women in rural were 1576, and in sem_urban were 42. A higher number or 1,145 early married are illiterate than the number of literate early married women. The Bayesian Survival Weibull proportional hazard model identified a women education, wealth index, residency and women occupation as a significant factor of early marriage. The campaign against early marriage should concentrate on the girls in the direction of education and economically empowering girls.