Contraceptive Use and Method choice: Societal Aspiration or Individual Decision

Use of contraceptive and its method choice is based on the decision made by a female, her husband only or both. But it is largely depends on husbands in the Indian traditional societies. Moreover, the decision taken for the use of contraceptive and its methods is primarily affected by some socio-demographic factors. Thus, there is a need to study and estimate the prevalence of contraceptive use and its methods and also to identify the factors which influence the use of contraceptive.
The objective of the present study is to explore some socio-demographic factors associated with contraceptive use and its method choice. Type of contraceptive is taken as dependent variables (modern, traditional & no use) and some socio-economic and demographic variables are taken as explanatory variables. This analysis is carried out using multinomial logistic regression technique for the currently married females those are neither infecund nor in menopause stage using data from NFHS-III (2005-06) of Uttar Pradesh, India. Results show that place of residence, education of female, wealth index, religion, age at first marriage, type of family, desire for son, husband’s education, marital duration, parity and mass media exposure significantly affect the use of contraceptive and its method choice.