The Impact of Contraceptive Use and Empowerment on Fertility Preference Using Pakistan Demographic Health Survey 2012-13
Type
Master thesisNot peer reviewed

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Date
2018-12-21Author
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Background: Fertility preference is an area of interest world over, particularly in the past five or
six decades, given the prevalence of high fertility rates in many parts of the world. National and
international organizations, governments, and policymakers have prioritized the issue by
introducing and implementing policies and initiatives to control the rising fertility rates.
Different national and international organizations, governments, and policymakers have
highlighted the issue and have acted to address the rising fertility rates. In doing so, they have
implemented initiatives and introduced policies to control the fertility rate among women.
Typically, countries like China and India are renowned for this issue – whereas it is a matter of
concern in Pakistan, to a comparatively lower degree. Pakistan is among the world’s many
countries that are facing challenges in controlling population growth rates. There is evidence that
a significant proportion of women do not want more children in Pakistan. However, a majority of
these women do not use contraception to prevent future births. Therefore, it is important to
evaluate women’s fertility preferences in a context-specific manner in Pakistan, where the
concept of fertility preference differs vividly from that of other countries in South Asia. This
study used the empowerment framework (resource, agency, and achievement) proposed by Naila
Kabeer (1999).
Research Objectives: The objective of this study is to identify key constructs from previous
literature and analyze data to understand the relationship between factors that correlate with each
other. This study also aims to create a model to identify the factors that work as barriers to the
exercise of choice by women in determining their own fertility preferences, such as wanting or
not wanting to have more children.
Data Material and Methods: This study relied on a quantitative research design and used
secondary data from the Pakistan Demographic Health Survey (PDHS) 2012-13. The Statistical
Packages for Social Science (SPSS) version 25 was used to run various analyses. The sample in
this study comprised 13,479 ever-married women aged between 15 and 49, who answered the
questionnaire provided. First, variables were operationalized in the new subsets to make them eligible for final analysis. Therefore, data cleaning, checking for outliers, deletion of duplicate
cases, reverse coding of variables, and recoding of variables was done wherever necessary.
Background, resource, and agency variables were drawn from the variables in the data. They
were analyzed and described using univariate (descriptive) statistics to show their frequency
distribution. Bivariate analyses were used to assess the relationship between the variables. Crosstabulation with Chi-Square was used for categorical variables. Independent sample t-test was
used for continuous variables. After preliminary analyses, binary logistic regression was
conducted. Three basic models were tested before testing the final parsimonious model.
Findings: The study found significant differences between women who want more children and
those who want no more children. With the increase in age, educational, and wealth, there is a
decrease in fertility. Poorer people have more children than richer. The strongest odds for
wanting more children were found in Balochistan OR=3.313, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
OR=2.548. Higher odds for wanting no more children was found in the case of the variable
“wanted the last child” OR=-2.435. As many as 65% of the respondents had not used any form
of contraception. According to the results, decision-making variables do not make any significant
contribution to fertility preference.
Conclusion: By increasing access to education in the country, fertility preferences will reduce.
Cultural norms have a strong influence in society and restrict women from making significant
contributions toward decisions specifically related to their health.
Publisher
The University of BergenSubject
fertility preferenceempowermentcontraceptive usedecision-makingPakistan Demographic and Health SurveyCollections
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