Microcredit,Family Planning Programs,and Contraceptive Behavior: Evidence From a Field Experiment in Ethiopia |
| |
Authors: | Jaikishan Desai Alessandro Tarozzi |
| |
Institution: | Health Services Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand. jaiki.desai@vuw.ac.nz |
| |
Abstract: | The impact of community-based family planning programs and access to credit on contraceptive use, fertility, and family size
preferences has not been established conclusively in the literature. We provide additional evidence on the possible effect
of such programs by describing the results of a randomized field experiment whose main purpose was to increase the use of
contraceptive methods in rural areas of Ethiopia. In the experiment, administrative areas were randomly allocated to one of
three intervention groups or to a fourth control group. In the first intervention group, both credit and family planning services
were provided and the credit officers also provided information on family planning. Only credit or family planning services,
but not both, were provided in the other two intervention groups, while areas in the control group received neither type of
service. Using pre- and post-intervention surveys, we find that neither type of program, combined or in isolation, led to
an increase in contraceptive use that is significantly greater than that observed in the control group. We conjecture that
the lack of impact has much to do with the mismatch between women’s preferred contraceptive method (injectibles) and the contraceptives
provided by community-based agents (pills and condoms). |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 PubMed SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|