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  • Title: Relationships of desire for no more children and socioeconomic and demographic factors in Sri Lankan women.
    Author: De Silva WI.
    Journal: J Biosoc Sci; 1992 Apr; 24(2):185-99. PubMed ID: 1583033.
    Abstract:
    Data from the 1982 Sri Lanka Contraceptive Prevalence Survey are used to identify women who wish to stop childbearing; they differ in socioeconomic status from their counterparts who want more children. Educated women are more likely to be motivated to cease childbearing than non-educated women; Christian or Sinhalese/Buddhist women are more willing to stop childbearing than Moor/Muslim or Tamil/Hindu women. The relationships between sex composition of existing children and women's fertility desires indicate that although moderate son preference exists it does not affect their contraceptive behaviour. Among those who want no more children, 15% are at risk of unwanted pregnancy because they do not practise contraception. Again better education and being Christian or Sinhalese/Buddhist reduced the risk of unwanted pregnancy. Women whose husbands disapproved of contraception had over four times higher risk of unwanted pregnancy than women whose husbands approved. A researcher analyzed 1982 data on 4500 ever married women living in Sri Lanka to determine the socioeconomic status of those who do not want to have any more children and, among these women, those who do not use contraception. 58%, 85% and 95% of women with 2, 3, and 4 living children did not want any more children respectively (p.001). Even though women expressed a moderate son preference, it did not affect contraceptive use. Women with secondary education had a higher odds of wanting no more children (47%) than women with more than secondary education (23%), yet both educated groups were more significantly likely to not want to have any more children than uneducated women (p.001). Christians expressed the greatest desire to stop childbearing followed by the Sinhalese/Buddhists (70.6% and 64%). In fact, Christians wanted to do so earlier than all other groups at each parity. Both Christians and Sinhalese/Buddhists were more apt to want not more children than the Tamil/Hindus (58.4%) and the Moor/Muslims (59.4%) (p001). Estate women, who tend to be Indian Tamils and tea-pickers, wanted to have no more children than either urban or rural women (p.01). This may be because their employment rate was higher than males and they provided the bulk of family income. 15% of all women wanting to stop childbearing did not use contraception. In terms of religion, those at highest risk of pregnancy were the Tamil/Hindus (3 times higher than the Sinhalese/Buddhists; p.001) followed by the Moor/Muslims. Educated women were at a significantly lower risk than less educated women (p.001). The strongest predictor of pregnancy among women who wanted to stop childbearing was husband's disapproval of family planning (p.001). Thus family planning programs should target less educated Tamil/hindu and Moor/Muslim couples where the husband does not approve of contraception.
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