Unmet need for family planning in Uttar Pradesh

Between 1981 and 1991, its population grew by 25% to 139 million, largely as a result of high fertility -- the highest of any Indian state. According to India"s 1992-93 National Family Health Survey in Uttar Pradesh, 30% of currently married women of reproductive age have an unmet need for contraception, either for spacing births or for limiting them. In Uttar Pradesh, as elsewhere in India, use of contraception for spacing births is uncommon. Only 10% of current use is for spacing, and 89% of the need for spacing is unmet. These findings indicate that a greatly increased effort is needed to meet the demand for temporary methods. Despite India"s emphasis on sterilization, 43% of the need to limit births is also unmet. Of course, sterilization is not the only way to reduce unmet need for limiting. Because some women may prefer to use temporary methods such as the pill or condom to limit family size, intensified promotion of temporary methods may reduce unmet need for limiting as well as unmet need for spacing. Unmet need varies according to women"s socioeconomic characteristics. Unmet need is especially high among rural women, illiterate women, women with illiterate husbands, Muslim women, scheduled-tribe women, and women not exposed to media messages on family planning. However, substantial proportions of women with unmet need in Uttar Pradesh say that they do not intend to use family planning at any time in the future, which suggests that it will not always be easy to convert unmet need into actual use of family planning. Includes references. (Author abstract, modified)