Measuring Unmet Need: Wives, Husbands or Couples?

Data from the three Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in Bangladesh the Dominican Republic and Zambia were utilized to examine a new definition of unmet need--one that considers only responses regarding prospective fertility desires and intentions to use contraceptives. An unmet need is determined for wives for husbands and for couples. Results demonstrate that differences between spouses in contraceptive and fertility intentions are substantial in the three countries. There is a greater difference between husbands and wives concerning intentions to practice contraception than there is regarding childbearing intentions. In Zambia 55% of wives not practicing contraception report their intention to use contraceptives within 12 months compared with 36% of husbands. In Bangladesh the corresponding figures are 46% for wives and 42% for husbands while in the Dominican Republic the proportions are 49% and 41% respectively. When the unmet need calculated using wives reports is compared with the results using the minimum estimate couples unmet need is overestimated by 106% in Bangladesh by 96% in the Dominican Republic and by 246% in Zambia. On the other hand estimates based on wives reports were closer to the maximum estimate for couples. Based on these results the big discrepancies are an indication of spousal disagreement or lack of communication on reproductive goals or contraceptive use.