What Birth Control Do You Use?

As per a survey, sexually active unmarried women are demanding and using modern contraceptive methods

There’s good news and bad news. A new survey indicates the use of contraceptives among sexually active unmarried women has increased from 2% to 12% in the past 10 years.

The National Family Health Survey, 2015-16, which was conducted by the Ministry of Health, states that the maximum condom usage is among unmarried women in the 20-24 age group.

Now the not-so-good news. Keeping up with the rules of a patriarchal society, 3 out of 8 men believed that contraception is ‘women’s business’ and men shouldn’t bother about it.

Here are some of the other important data points from the survey:

As per the survey, 99% of married men & women in India know of at least one method of contraception. The state of Punjab (76%) topped in the use of contraceptives, while states like Manipur, Bihar, Meghalaya (24% each) had low usage.

A large number of women were found to use traditional contraceptive methods like monitoring the menstrual cycle or the 'pull out' method while modern contraceptive methods were found to be more popular among the unmarried, sexually active women.

Female sterilisation (36%) was the most accepted method in the 25-49 age group, followed by condoms (5.6%) and contraceptive pills (4.1%). Surprisingly, emergency contraceptive pills were used by less than 1% of the women.

While more men and women believed in the efficiency of condoms, 20% of the men also felt that a woman who used contraception was more likely to have multiple sexual partners.

61% of men felt that if used correctly, condoms could help protect against pregnancy most of the time while 25% of men felt that they were effective only sometimes.

The survey also found that the wealthier women (53%) preferred modern contraceptive methods over traditional ones.

As per the survey, 69% of the modern contraceptive users obtained their source of contraception from the public health sector.

While the private health sector was found to be the major source of pills & condoms, the public health sector was the major source of IUDs and female & male sterilisation.

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