Family Welfare Expenditure, Contraceptive Use, Sources and Method-Mix in India

Sheuli Misra, Srinivas Goli, Md Juel Rana, Abhishek Gautam, Nitin Datta, Priya Nanda and Ravi Verma
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Sheuli Misra: Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi 110001, India
Md Juel Rana: International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai 400001, India
Abhishek Gautam: International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), New Delhi 110001, India
Nitin Datta: International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), New Delhi 110001, India
Priya Nanda: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, India Country Office, New Delhi 110001, India
Ravi Verma: International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), New Delhi 110001, India

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 17, 1-20

Abstract: Making universal access to sexual and reproductive health care a reality, and thus building momentum for comprehensive family planning by 2030, is key for achieving sustainable development goals. However, in the last decade, India has been retreating from progress achieved in access to family planning. Family planning progress for a large country such as India is critical for achieving sustainable developmental goals. Against this backdrop, the paper investigated the question of how far family welfare expenditure affects contraceptive use, sources of contraceptive methods, and method-mix using triangulation of micro and macro data analyses. Our findings suggest that, except for female sterilizations, modern methods of contraception do not show a positive relationship with family welfare expenditure. Notwithstanding a rise in overall family welfare expenditure, spending on core family planning programs stagnates. State-wise and socio-economic heterogeneity in source-mix and method-mix continued to influence contraceptive access in India. Method-mix continued to skew towards female sterilization. Public sector access is helpful only for promoting female sterilization. Thus, the source-mix for modern contraceptives presents a clear public-private divide. Over time, access to all contraceptive methods by public sources declined while the private sector has failed to fill the gap. In conclusion, this study identified a need for revitalizing family planning programs to promote spacing methods in relatively lower-performing states and socio-economic groups to increase overall contraceptive access and use in India through the rise in core family planning expenditure.

Keywords: contraceptive use; family welfare expenditure; sources of contraception; method-mix; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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