Literacy and healthcare-seeking among women with low educational attainment: analysis of cross-sectional data from the 2011 Nepal demographic and health survey

Table 2 Characteristics by literacy group, among Nepali women with no formal schooling

	Total (n = 4,875)	Literate group (n = 576)	Illiterate group (n = 4,299)	P value^a
Age in years, mean (SE ^b )	34.22 (0.36)	35.05 (0.50)	34.13 (0.38)	0.117
Marital status, %				0.412
Never in a union	4.6	5.4	4.6
Married	90.8	90.2	90.8
Widowed	3.5	4.2	3.5
Divorced	0.1	0.0	0.1
Separated	0.9	0.3	1.0
Wealth quintile ^c , %				< 0.0001
First	26.9	17.7	27.9
Second	25.9	22.8	26.3
Third	23.1	22.0	23.2
Fourth	16.6	23.7	15.7
Fifth	7.6	13.8	6.9
Geographic location, %				0.020
Rural	92.1	89.0	92.5
Urban	7.9	11.0	7.5
Caste/Ethnicity, %				< 0.0001
Brahmin or Chhetri	23.8	30.2	23.0
Newar or Janajati	38.3	57.8	36.0
Dalit	19.7	9.2	20.9
Muslim or other	18.3	2.8	20.1

^aP value for continuous variable (age) was calculated from an adjusted Wald test comparing mean age of the two groups. P values comparing proportions in the two groups are Pearson, survey design-corrected p values.
^bStandard error is linearized to account for survey design.
^cCut-off points for the household wealth quintiles were calculated from the 10,826 households surveyed in the 2011 Nepal DHS.

ISSN: 1475-9276