Incongruence and differentials in reporting ideal family size by the couples in India.

Until recently family planning research policy and programs especially in developing countries have usually given little attention to mens reproductive decision making. Mens non-participation in family planning programmes may have implications for their ideal family size and attitudes towards contraceptive use. From the beginning researchers have been paying attention to the determinants of womens contraceptive use in order to feed into policies concerning fertility regulation and to feed into family planning programme design. Most of the countries of the world particularly developing countries still have male dominated cultures. In such situations one would expect that the husbands consent may often be a prerequisite for a woman to use family planning method. The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD 1994) places the responsibility for family planning equally on men and women instead of solely on women. It also suggests that high priority should be given to the development of new methods for regulation of fertility in men. The present paper discusses the matching and mismatch in reporting of ideal family size by the couples in India. It attempts to understand the incongruence and differentials among couples regarding ideal family size each one would prefer to have using the couple information from NFHS-3. (excerpt)