Determinants of Contraceptive Choice in Nepal

Abstract

This study investigated how improvement in women's status affects the choice of contraceptive methods in Nepal. We regressed the choice of contraceptive methods on the variables of women's status and household characteristics by employing large-scale microdata representing over 12,000 married women aged 15-49 in Nepal. Years of schooling and literacy were defined as women's status variables. We estimated how educational attainment affects the choice of contraceptive methods. We also analyzed how fear of their partners affected women's choice. Female sterilization is the most common choice of contraceptive methods (25.5% of the methods users) in Nepal, followed by injections (19.9%). However, our estimation results showed that these results changed according to improvement in women's status. An additional year of education increased the probability that women would choose condoms by 1.2 percentage points (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.7, 1.6) and decreased the probability of choosing female sterilization by 1.4 percentage points (95% CI: -1.9, -0.8). For the well-educated women, condoms became the second choice (21.5%), while female sterilization was the third option (17.8%) for contraceptive methods. Women's fear of their partners also affected the choice of contraceptive methods. The women who feared their partners were 7 percentage points more likely to choose female sterilization than condoms. The selection of contraceptive methods is associated with women's status. Women with higher status are more likely to avoid choosing female sterilization in Nepal.