IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pgph00/0001889.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trends and factors associated with mobile phone ownership among women of reproductive age in Bangladesh

Author

Listed:
  • Gulam Muhammed Al Kibria
  • Jannatun Nayeem

Abstract

Despite a significant increase in mobile phone ownership over the past few decades, this remains low among women in many developing countries, including Bangladesh. This cross-sectional study analyzed Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2014 and 2017–18 data to investigate the prevalence (with 95% confidence intervals [CI]), trends, and factors associated with mobile phone ownership. We included data of 17854 and 20082 women from BDHS 2014 and BDHS 2017–18, respectively. Participants’ mean age was 30.9 (standard error [SE]: 0.09) and 31.4 (SE: 0.08) years in 2014 and 2017–18, respectively. The overall ownership was 48.1% (95% CI: 46.4%-49.9%) in 2014 and 60.1% (95% CI: 58.8%-61.4%) in 2017–18. From 2014 to 2017–18, the prevalence of mobile phone ownership increased according to most background characteristics, especially for those with lower ownership in 2014. For instance, about 25.7% (95% CI: 23.8%-27.6%) women without any formal education owned a mobile phone in 2014, the prevalence increased to 37.5% (95% CI: 35.5%-39.6%) among them in 2017–18. The following factors were associated with ownership in both surveys: age, number of children, work status, education level of women and their husbands, household wealth status, religion, and division of residence. For instance, in 2014, compared to women with no formal education, women with primary, secondary, and college/above education, respectively, had the adjusted odds ratio (AOR) of 1.8 (95% CI: 1.7–2.0), 3.2 (95% CI: 2.9–3.6), and 9.0 (95% CI: 7.4–11.0), and in 2017–18 these AORs were 1.7 (95% CI: 1.5–1.9), 2.5 (95% CI: 2.2–2.8), and 5.9 (95% CI: 5.0–7.0). The ownership of mobile phones has increased, and the socioeconomic differences in ownership have declined. However, some women groups had consistently lower ownership, especially women with low education level, low educated husbands, and low wealth status.

Suggested Citation

  • Gulam Muhammed Al Kibria & Jannatun Nayeem, 2023. "Trends and factors associated with mobile phone ownership among women of reproductive age in Bangladesh," PLOS Global Public Health, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(5), pages 1-10, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pgph00:0001889
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0001889
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0001889
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0001889&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001889?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pgph00:0001889. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: globalpubhealth (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.