Poor-Rich Differential in Contraceptive Adoption among Postpartum Women in India

This paper examines the poor, rich differentials in contraceptive adoption in India. Study takes advantage of calendar data, which is first time available in Indian National Family Health Survey (2005-06), to deal with the differentials between poor and rich women in type and time to initiate contraceptive method. The initiation of postpartum contraceptive use analyzed from calendar data by selecting the first use of contraceptive in subsequent month after having a last birth in 5 years preceding survey. The study employed multinomial logistic regressions to investigate a variable indicating type of contraceptive method and Cox hazard regression model to examine timing of adoption of contraceptive, for those who use, the time from birth in months until contraception is started. Result shows that, there are significant gaps in modern contraceptive prevalence between the poor and rich. About 55 percent poor household women did not adopt contraceptive after having birth, for rich women this percentage was only 30. Nearly 35 percent rich and only 10 percent poor women have adopted spacing method, although the difference in adoption of sterilization is insignificant. Findings show that 71 percent rich women and only half of poor women have adopted spacing method within six months after delivery.