Abstract:
In Tanzania, households in rural areas are characterized by low socio-economic status
(SES). Although contribution of women on household economy is essential, the
relationship between women’s socio-demographic and reproductive factors and SES of
rural households regardless the sex of household head, have not been fully explored. This
study aimed to examine the relationship between women’s socio-demographic and
reproductive factors on SES of households in Morogoro district in Tanzania. A cross-
sectional study was conducted in six randomly selected villages of Morogoro Rural
District. A total of 542 women of reproductive age (15-49 years) and their respective
households were studied. Data analysis was performed using SPSS version 22 software.
Socio-demographic factors that include being older age (≥35 years) [OR 1.26 (95% CI:
1.82-2.94) and residing in villages with better road access [OR 4.08 (95% CI: 2.40-6.94)]
relate with higher household SES. Having under five children [OR 0.34 (95%CI: 1.033-
2.502] associated with low household SES. Likewise, reproductive factors, the desire to
have many children [OR 0.31 (95%CI: 1.17-2.06] associated with less likelihood to attain
higher SES of household. Furthermore, being pregnant at >19 years of age was associated
with a higher household SES ([OR 1.76; 95% CI: (1.48-3.83), but more than half (56.5%)
of the women had their first conception at the age of ≤ 18 years. It was also noted that,
there was significant difference in time spent in economic production and family care
activities between men and women (p<0.01), with women spending 2.23 hours less per
day in economic production compared to their male counterparts. This study concluded
that women’s age, road accessibility to the locality of residence, age composition in
households, number of children desired by women and the age at first pregnancy are
important factors to be considered for improving household SES in rural areas. Findings
from this study calls for economic empowerment of young women and improving the
roads to increase connectivity and transportation thus enhance women engagement in a
diverse of economic activities consequently contribute to improving SES of households.
Furthermore, sexual and reproductive health education, including use of family planning
measures should be strengthened to discourage early pregnancies to promote growth of
SES of households. In the other hand, the time spent by women in family care giving
activities during economic productive hours should be reduced by improving technology
for performing domestic activities. Likewise, access to social services such as clean water
and electricity should be improved to easy care giving activities.
