Conversations on contraceptives

In a previous post, I wrote about a community health worker study that involved comparing women making the decision to use contraceptives alone to to couples making this decision together.  This research was conducted through a randomized controlled trial in Zambia by some very creative economists. And as I impetuously concluded, duh, men want more babies.

Wrong! It turns out, not only was I making a sweeping generalization from a single experiment (admittedly, that was mostly for the catchy title), but there's evidence the other way around.  Thanks to more smart friends at the Burkina Faso population conference, I learned about a similarly rigorous study in Ethiopia which concluded that women are more likely to use contraceptives when they've had a consultation with their husbands present.  This leaves the question of the role of men in family planning completely open. Perhaps there is some value to initiating the discussion of family planning altogether, or perhaps some cultures allow men to internalize the cost to larger families more successfully than others.

These questions still fascinate me, which is why I hope to incorporate this intra-household component in my community health worker study in Tanzania as well.

Hat tips: RT, SG