Socio-economic and Demographic Determinants of Unmet Need for Family Planning in India and its Consequences

Objective of this study is to investigate the likelihood of unmet need for family planning in Indian states by some socio-economic and demographic characteristics among the currently married women aged 20-39 years. To find out the differentials of unmet need for contraceptive use, Logistic regression technique is applied to National Family Health Survey (NFHS 3) data. Of the socio-economic and demographic variables, number of living children, ethnicity, wealth status of household, media exposure, occupation of the respondents, child death experience, sex composition of children are found to be significantly effective in determining unmet need for contraception of the currently married women. The results of the study show that unmet need for family contraception is more in the EAG states as compared to the South Indian and rest Indian states Key Words : Unmet need for family planning, contraceptive use, currently married women, EAG states, South Indian states, rest Indian states, spacing birth, limiting birth