Socioeconomic disparities in contraception, unmet need for family planning and induced abortion in urban India

India was among the very first country in the world to launch an official family planning programme , however, it couldn’t realized the ambitious goals and targets that kept changing with time. The use of family planning still remains limited with higher unmet need for contraception and abortion rates, especially among poor Indian women. Though, many previous studies have examined the barriers from both demand and supply perspectives towards use of family planning. However, there is dearth of studies that examine the magnitude of socioeconomic gradient in the use of family planning, unmet need for contraception and induced abortion that needs urgent scientific scrutiny.

Using the District Level Household and Facility Survey (DLHS, 2007-08) data on 1,22,487 currently married, non-pregnant and fecund women (15-49 y), the present study attempts to examine the magnitude of socioeconomic disparities in contraceptive use, unmet need for contraception and induced abortion in urban India. Rate ratio and logistic regression models were employed to estimate the magnitude in terms of predicted probabilities after adjusting for important socioeconomic, demographic and contextual correlates.

Women from the poorest wealth quintile were significantly less likely to use any form of family planning methods, and more likel