Consistency of Reproductive Attitudes in Rural India: Evidence from a Longitudinal Study

The information related to the reproductive preferences has become very important for understanding fertility behavior. However, the quality of such type of data is another important issue. The present study is based on a large-scale longitudinal study undertaken in rural India with the objective of understanding how the quality of family planning services is linked with contraceptive behaviour. The 2002-2003 longitudinal survey (wave-2) in rural India was designed to conduct a re-interview of ever married women who were interviewed during the second round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-2) conducted in 1998-99 (wave-1) (IIPS and ORC Macro 2000). Result clearly shows that around 39 percent women have given the same response in both the surveys. Moreover, around 20 percent women reported at least one child fewer in the second wave whereas around 14 percent women reported at least one child greater in the second wave. However, around 27 percent women have given non-numeric response/no response either in the wave-1 or wave-2. Further, the reporting of ideal number of girls was found to be more consistent than ideal reporting of boys. Result also shows the consistency of reporting ideal number of children by different states of India.