Influence of age gap between couples on contraception and fertility.

Many factors like age at marriage for husband and wife age gap between spouses desire for additional child household structure residence education religion caste standard of living and mass media exposure affect the use of contraception and fertility behaviour. But the main concern of this study in Madhya Pradesh India is age difference between spouses and contraceptive use and fertility behaviour. Overall findings of this study reveal that though the impact of age gap between spouses on contraceptive use is positive but its effect on the use of any temporary family planning method is negative. This implies that the use of any temporary family planning method increases with decrease in the age gap between spouses. Where the age gap between spouses is less than one year mean number of children ever born is higher (3.7) as compared to women having 7-9 years of gap (3.1). However it is same for the women having 1-3 year or 4-6 year (3.3) of gap.