12 September 2003, 11am, U Lounge
Why do women use contraception?
Ian M Timæus, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Tom A Moultrie, University of Cape Town
Much of the demographic literature presumes that women use contraception to either limit family size or space births. This paper argues that women also use contraception to postpone pregnancy. Postponement is not synonymous with spacing but arises when women delay their next birth for reasons unrelated to the age of their youngest child.
We demonstrate that postponement has a distinctive impact on the shape of birth interval distributions that differs from those of family size limitation, birth spacing, and a mixture of the two behaviours. Some populations, such as South Africa, have developed fertility regimes characterised by birth intervals far longer than can be accounted for by birth spacing. Postponement of births is most likely to become widespread in countries characterised by social unrest and dysfunctional institutions and those developed countries with particularly high opportunity costs of childbearing for women.
Centre for Population Studies
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
50 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3DP
Tel: +44 (0)20 7299 4689
Fax: +44 (0)20 7299 4637
Email: ian.timaeus@lshtm.ac.uk
Centre for Actuarial Research
University of Cape Town
Private Bag
Rondebosch
7701 South Africa
Email: tmoultri@commerce.uct.ac.za
What are Ghanaian women doing about their fertility intentions? A multilevel multinomial logistics analysis
Fiifi Amoako Johnson, University of Southampton
The consistency or otherwise between fertility intentions and subsequent behaviours have been investigated by a number of studies. Most of the studies have aimed at identifying suitable methodologies and concepts for analysing fertility intentions and behaviour. Methods that have been used in studying fertility intentions have assessed the validity of forecasting fertility behaviour and measuring attitudes based on 'ideal', desired and expected family size. The shortcomings of these measures are their dependence on respondents' perceptions which might not reflect the individual reproductive ideals but that of the social context and their inability to capture changes in conditions or state over time. These measures therefore may not predict accurately the outcome of one's fertility intentions.
The fulfilment of fertility intentions is tied to acting to avert the occurrence of unwanted/ mistimed pregnancies. Although contraceptive methods have varying degrees of failure, they are the only known and most reliable method of averting the occurrence of pregnancy among sexually active women.
The Ghana 1993 and 1998 Demographic and Health Surveys, respectively, show that 76.3 per cent and 62.2 per cent of women of reproductive ages (15-49) did not want a child or additional children at least in the next two years following the survey. 6.5 per cent and 21.2 per cent were undecided or unsure of the timing of their next birth. However, only 18.9 per cent and 16.8 per cent of fecund women sampled in the 1993 and 1998 Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys, respectively, were using contraception.
This paper investigates women's fertility intentions, taking into account contraceptive use to predict the likely incidence of unwanted and mistimed births, accounting for both attitudinal and non-attitudinal determinants. The paper also discusses changes in fertility intentions and efforts being made to achieve the perceived intentions over the 1990s in Ghana.
Division of Social Statistics
University of Southampton
Southampton SO17 1BJ
Email: faj100@socsci.soton.ac.uk
Fertility transition in Mongolia: does it fall into fertility transition theories?
Gereltuya Altankhuyag, Zoe Matthews and James Brown, University of Southampton
Since 1921, Mongolia followed a centralised planned economy up until 1989, when a democratisation process of its political system was initiated together with a transition towards a market economy. Mongolia covers a territory of 1.565 square kilometres. The country's population density, at 1.52 people per square kilometre, is one of the lowest in the world. Since the mid 1970s, the country has experienced a dramatic decrease in the level of fertility. This fall was intensified when the country started to move towards a market economy. The country experienced a drop in its total fertility rate from six children in 1975 to about three children in 1995, and thereafter it stabilised at 2.4 children per woman of reproductive age.
Relatively few studies are done on fertility transition in Mongolia, primarily because of the lack of data sources. At first, the paper aims to identify distinct periods of fertility transition in Mongolia and find out its place among other countries for the last three decades. Then it evaluates how the Mongolian experience relates to fertility transition theories that exist up to now. The development of the framework for the analysis of fertility transition is the next purpose of the paper. Using the framework, the paper attempts to identify direct and indirect determinants of fertility decline in Mongolia for the period of 1975-98. Some policy implications will be addressed at the end of the paper.
Data for the analysis are drawn from the Reproductive Health Survey of Mongolia conducted in 1998 and from the Population and Housing Census 2000. In addition, some macro-level data will be used to analyse the general pattern of fertility change. Descriptive statistics, Poisson regression and multilevel modelling techniques are employed to perform the analysis.
Department of Social Statistics
University of Southampton
Highfield
Southampton SO17 1BJ
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 2527
Email: ngbb@socsci.soton.ac.uk
Email: zm2@socsci.soton.ac.uk
Email: jjb1@socsci.soton.ac.uk
Time to second birth in Egypt: the role of contraception
Angela Baschieri, University of Southampton
Fertility in Egypt has declined by almost two births during the past 20 years, from 5.3 births at the time of the 1980 Egypt Fertility Survey (EFS) to 3.5 births at the time of the 2000 Egypt Demographic Health Survey (DHS). Furthermore, the median duration of the second birth interval increased by 3.6 months from 23.9 months between first and second birth in 1980 EFS to 27.5 months in 1995 DHS.
Contraceptive levels have more than doubled over the same period. Despite this increase in contraception use very few women who approve of family planning think that a newly married couple should use contraception to delay the first birth. The onset of contraceptive use takes place after the first birth. However, little is known clearly about the determinants of this choice as well as the role of contraception in spacing the second birth interval.
To explore the dynamics of this choice and its timing, this paper uses the Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey, a nationally representative sample of 15,573 ever-married women aged 15-49, that provides detailed information on fertility and family planning. An event history analysis technique has been applied, which allows the study of the determinants of the timing from first to second births.
Preliminary results suggest a substantial geographical differential on the onset of use of contraception in determining the second birth interval as well as differential on methods use. This finding is expected to contribute to population and family planning policy in Egypt.
Angela Baschieri
Department of Social Statistics
University of Southampton
Highfield
Southampton SO17 1BJ
Email: ab5@socsci.soton.ac.uk