Desired Family Size and Contraceptive Use in Pakistan

Although KAP surveys indicate desire to limit family size this indication may not have predictive value with regard to use of family planning. The purpose of this article is to assess the correlation between desired and ideal family size and ever-use of any contraceptive method among married women of fertile age in Pakistan; it is based on cross-sectional data from the 1975 Pakistan Fertility Survey (PFS) and Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA) has been used. In the PFS 84% of women gave either of 2 consistent responses; that is they wanted more children because they had not yet reached their desired family size or they did not want more children because they had. Among the latter 24% had used contraceptives at some time and 12% were current users. Only 3% of the former had ever used contraceptives. After controlling for background variables currently married women who had reached their desired family size were 4 times more likely to have used contraceptives than those who wanted more children because their ideal was equal to or greater than their number of living children (20% vs. 5%). This correlation between the measures of desired fertility and ever-use of contraception was not trivial. (Summaries in ENG FRE).