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  • Title: Ethnic differences in contraceptive use in Sri Lanka.
    Author: Murty KR, De Vos S.
    Journal: Stud Fam Plann; 1984; 15(5):222-32. PubMed ID: 6495362.
    Abstract:
    In Sri Lanka in 1975, the majority Sinhalese had a much higher use of contraception than either the Sri Lanka Tamils or the Moors. This study uses a national sample of women of childbearing age gathered by the Sri Lanka World Fertility Survey in 1975 to assess four possible reasons for differential contraceptive use: (1) differences in socioeconomic position; (2) cultural differences; (3) minority status; and (4) differential access to family planning services. The first three explanations focus on differences in the demand for contraception while the fourth explanation focuses on differences in the availability of contraceptives. The socioeconomic, cultural, and minority status hypotheses fail to explain the higher contraceptive use among the Sinhalese. The evidence is consistent with the idea that ethnic differences in contraceptive use were largely caused by differential access to family planning services. In Sri Lanka in 1975, the majority Sinhalese had a much higher use of contraception than either the Sri Lanka Tamils or the Moors. This study uses a national sample of 4640 women of childbaring age gathered by the Sri Lanka World Fertility Survey in 1975 to assess 4 possible reasons for differential use: differences in socioeconomic position, cultural differences, minority status, and differential access to family planning services. The 1st 3 explanations focus on differences in the demand for contraception while the 4th, focuses on differences in the availability of contraceptives. The socioeconomic, cultural, and minority status hypothesis fail to explain the higher contraceptive use among the Sinhales. The evidence is consistent with the idea that ethnic differences in contraceptive use are largely caused by differential access to family planning services. According to the socioeconomic hypothesis, if each ethnic group were distributed equally with respect to its demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, there would be no difference between groups in contraceptive use. This is not supported by the data which show a higher contraceptive use among Sinhalese than Tamil or Moors, even with controls of socioeconomic status. Cultural influence include religious attitudes, attitudes towards the role of women in the family and in society and pronatalist attitudes. Little support for a cultural explanation exists. The minority group hypothesis predicts higher or lower contraceptive use among minority groups depending on their social position, but there is little support for this explanation also. Differential access to family planning is well supported by the data. Data on service provision by ethnicity is not available, but it seems reasonable to assume that someone may not talk about a sensitive topic like contraception with someone from a different ethnic group. In any case, services provided in Sihala cannot be used by someone who only speaks Tamil. The importance of ethnicity in determining access to contraceptives is, however, largely unknown because of limited data. The provision of multilingual services may be advantageous, but further descriptive and analytic research is needed.
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