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Concordance in spousal reports of current contraceptive use in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2020

Dipti Govil Open the ORCID record for Dipti Govil [Opens in a new window]  and
Nidhi Khosla Open the ORCID record for Nidhi Khosla [Opens in a new window]
Dipti Govil
Affiliation:
International Institute for Population Sciences, Deonar, Mumbai, India
Nidhi Khosla*
Affiliation:
Department of Health Sciences, California State University, East Bay, Hayward, CA, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: nidhi.khosla1@gmail.com
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Abstract

Couple-level reports of contraceptive use are important as wives and husbands may report their use differently. Using matched couple data (N = 63,060) from India’s NFHS-4 (2015–16), this study examined concordance in spousal reports of current contraceptive use and its differentials. Reporting of contraceptive use was higher among wives (59.0%) than husbands (25.2%). Concordance was low; 16.5% of couples reported the current use of the same method, while 20.4% reported the current use of any method. Many husbands did not report female sterilization as a means of contraception being used by their wives. Reconstruction of contraceptive use among men, based on the ‘ever-use of sterilization’ question asked to men, increased concordance by 10%. Multivariate analyses showed that concordance was low in urban and southern India, among younger women and among women with a lower wealth index. Men’s control over household decision-making and negative attitudes towards contraception were associated with lower concordance. The findings highlight the importance of using couple-level data to estimate contraceptive prevalence, and the role of education programmes to inculcate positive attitudes towards contraception, fostering gender equality and involving men in family planning efforts. The results also raise the issue of data quality as the survey questions were asked differently to men and women, which might have contributed to the wide observed discordance.

Keywords

ConcordanceContraceptive useIndia
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , July 2021 , pp. 606 - 622
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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