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  • Title: Consistency between reproductive preferences and behavior: the Sri Lankan experience.
    Author: De Silva WI.
    Journal: Stud Fam Plann; 1991; 22(3):188-97. PubMed ID: 1949101.
    Abstract:
    Data collected in the 1982 Sri Lanka Contraceptive Prevalence Survey and the 1985 Sri Lanka Contraceptive Survey, a follow-up study, were used to examine the reliability of respondents' preferences for additional children. At the aggregate level, consistency was remarkable: In 1982, 47 percent of women said they wanted more children and in 1985, 49 percent had more, for a slight excess of actual over wanted fertility. Even though inconsistencies existed, at the individual level preferences were moderately predictive of subsequent behavior. Unwanted fertility was related not only to the demographic characteristics of the women but also to disagreement with their husbands on desired fertility. More of those who believed that their husbands wanted additional children than those who believed otherwise reported births in the follow-up period. Nonusers of contraception were over three times more likely than contraceptors using modern methods to have had an unwanted birth. Researchers compared data from the 1982 Sri Lanka Contraceptive Prevalence Survey with data from its 1985 follow up to examine consistency between reproductive preferences and fertility behavior. 47% of women not sterilized in 1982 wanted more children and 49% had more children by 1985. Of those who wanted more children in 1982, 64% had at least 1 more child. Younger and recently married women who wanted no more children tended to have more unwanted births (p.001) than other women. Further, only 26.7% of urban women had unintended births compared to 36.1% of rural women and 54.8% of women on tea estates (p.05). Tamil/Hindu and Moor/Muslim women (47%) had more unwanted births than did Sinhalese/Buddhist (34%) and Christian (33%) women. The lowest level of inconsistency was among better educated couples (30.2%), yet the highest level was for couples where the wife had 6 years of schooling and the husband had 6 (49%; p.001). Only 24% of the women using a modern contraceptive had an unwanted birth, while 49% of nonusers (p.001) and 30.5% of those using a traditional method had an unwanted birth. At all levels, except the level where both had 6 years of schooling, women who want no more children were more likely to have had more children in the interim if their husbands wanted more children in 1982, especially women who had 6 years and their husbands 6 years (p.05). Similarly women who had 6 years while their husbands had 6 years and who were married 10 years had the highest rate of inconsistency (p.05). Educated couples were more likely to use contraception, especially traditional methods, than less uneducated couples. It appears the inconsistency between preference and reproductive behavior among the educational categories is not related to nonuse. The results suggest that cooperation between husband and wife who used traditional methods was weak when educated women married less educated men.
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