Changes in Contraceptive Method Mix and its Role in Fertility Decline between 1992 and 2006 in Urban India

In India, urban fertility has already reached the below replacement level. However, at the subnational levels, urban fertility varies from 1.4 in Assam to 3 children per woman in Uttar Pradesh. The national family health surveys suggest that the decline in fertility rate does not commensurate with an increase in contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) during 1992-2006 at the state level. On one hand, urban Punjab registered a decline of two percent in CPR but the fertility declined by about a quarter while 76% increase is noticed with a decline in urban fertility was below 20% in UP. Thus, to examine contraceptive method-mix not only from the angle of fertility decline, but also becomes equally critical to see how couples making contraception choices in urban settings when sexually transmitted infections, sexual satisfaction and rights to make choice are at the centre stage. This paper finds that modern spacing methods are on the rise in the urban setting of all states except Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and J & K but use of limiting methods have gone up except in states like Punjab, Odisha, Assam and HP during 1992-2006. In most of the states, the prevalence of IUD and vasectomy has reduced that has been compensated by the rise in the prevalence of condoms and Pills, and traditional methods. Socioeconomic differentials in method-mix.