Husband-Wife Relations and Family-Planning Practices in Urban Hong Kong

Urban Family Life Survey data were used to assess the influence of 2 features of husband-wife relations--the distribution of influence between spouses and the openness of husband-wife communication channels--on the adoption of family planning practices in Hong Kong. The data on family authority relations indicate that women who do not want more children are more likely to practice family planning if they have high levels of influence over general family matters. In conflict situations the husbands desires regarding family size seem to have a greater impact than the wifes on whether family planning will be practiced. In cases where the wife opposed more children but the husband wanted more only 19% of wives practiced fertility control; conversely in situations where the wife wanted more children and the husband did not 48% practiced family planning. Women who do not want more children are more likely to practice family planning if they have high levels of verbal communication with their husbands. Wives in high communication marriages tend to start practicing fertility control earlier in the birth order than those scoring lower on the communication index. The lowest levels of husband-wife communication were found among couples with low incomes and low levels of education consistent with the culture of poverty thesis.