Education remains the best contraceptive: study Premium

With World Population Day (July 11) around the corner, experts say India’s thrust should be on ensuring the sexual and reproductive health of its young people.

Last year, India overtook China as the world’s most populous country.

According to United Nations estimates, India’s population which is currently 1.4 billion, will peak at 1.7 billion or so in 2064 before settling at 1.53 billion in 2100. But even though these numbers are staggering, data indicates that population growth is slowing —the total fertility rate has dipped below the replacement level of 2.1 and is projected to dip further.

With World Population Day (July 11) around the corner, experts say India’s thrust should be on ensuring the sexual and reproductive health of its young people.

A study that referenced the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) concluded that there is a significant association between years of schooling and total unmet needs for family planning and unmet needs for spacing. The results of the study are contained in the paper ‘Changes in discourse on unmet need for family planning among married women in India: evidence from NFHS-5.’ It was published in the Scientific Reports journal last year. According to the study: “The demand for unmet needs for spacing and limiting was the highest among the women in the age categories 15–19 (17.8%) and 20–24 (17.3%).”

This, says Poonam Muttreja, executive director, Population Foundation of India, is primarily due to two factors: women who get married very young are usually from backward regions and not very educated, and therefore, their agency to negotiate or even talk about family planning is limited. “This is a social norm: even if the young woman does talk to a healthcare worker, the thinking is that once they are married, they must prove their fertility with children before family planning, and therefore there is no room for access to contraception,” she says.

The other issue, Ms. Mutteja says, is that the country is increasingly seeing teenage pregnancies both among married and unmarried teens, and yet, families are unwilling to accept that their unmarried children may be sexually active. “This is compounded by the lack of sex education. Globally, evidence has shown that where sex education is given, the sexual debut of a young person is postponed. It also helps eradicate misconceptions. In India, for a young person to even access condoms or any other form of contraception is culturally and socially against norms,” she adds.

There is an urgent need to focus on young people, both men and women, and on their sexual and reproductive health through culturally sensitive behaviour change communication, and by offering them a basket of contraceptive options to meet their needs. She reiterated that women’s education continues to be the most effective contraception..