Contraceptive use among married women of reproductive age has showed a substantial progress over the last few decades in Bangladesh. This study explores the sociodemographic factors associated with contraceptive use among ever-married women of reproductive age in Bangladesh by utilizing the information extracted from three of the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys (BDHSs) in 1993–1994, 2004 and 2014. Bivariate analysis was conducted by performing chi-squared test of independence to explore the relationship between selected sociodemographic factors and dependent variables. To know the adjusted effects of covariates, a popular binary logistic regression model was considered. Respondents’ current age, place residence, division religion, education, age at first marriage, family planning (FP) media exposure, ideal number of children and fertility preferences are the significant determinants according to the most recent survey, BDHS 2014. However, wealth index and a respondent’s current working status were found to be significant factors only in BDHS 2004. The results of the study strongly recommend efforts to increase the education level among poor people, particularly among women in Bangladesh. Program interventions, including health behavior education and family planning services and counselling, are especially needed for some categories of the population, including those living in rural areas, Sylhet, Chittagong and Dhaka divisions, as well as illiterate and Muslim ever-married women.

Bangladesh is passing the second phase of fertility transition according to the study released World Population Prospects (WPP) in 2015. The current aggregate fertility level (TFR) of Bangladesh is 2.3 births per woman. The analysis is based on secondary data obtained from three Bangladesh Demographic Health Surveys (BDHS 1993-94, BDHS 2004 and BDHS 2014). This study critically examined the decomposition of the change in fertility in Bangladesh by proximate determinants during the period 1993-94 to 2014. Due to the direct effect between fertility and proximate determinants we conducted Bongaarts aggregate fertility. The contribution of each of the major proximate variables has been examined through the decomposition of TFR for the period 1993-94 to 2014 at two points in time. The results indicate that in 2014, contraception has the highest fertility reducing effect accounting for 61.6 percent (Cc = 0.384) reduction of TN relative to TMFR for Bangladesh compared to 56.7 percent in 2004. Our study clearly showed that TFR in Bangladesh declined by 10.32 percent or absolutely 0.32 births from 3.10 births in 2004 to 2.78 birth in 2014. Our analyses clearly indicate that contraceptive practice is playing the key role in fertility decline in Bangladesh. The analyses also reveal that although the fertility, reducing effect is offset by the declining trend in the lactational infecundability period. The result of the study observed that the policy implications that can be drawn in order to achieve further fertility decline are campaigning for increase in the age at marriage of women and encouraging efforts to increase the quality of contraceptive use which will helped to achieved national and International targeted (SDG 3).