Contextual Influences of Modern Contraceptive Use among Rural Women in Rwanda and Nepal

Wenjuan Wang, ICF International
Soumya Alva, John Snow, Inc.
Clara R. Burgert, ICF International

This study uses the most recent Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data in Rwanda and Nepal to examine the role of four realms of community-level influence – socio-economic development, women’s empowerment, access to family planning information and services, and fertility norms – on women’s current use of modern contraception. Community socioeconomic variables are obtained through linking spatial data with the DHS cluster locations. Other contextual factors are measured by aggregating responses of individuals living in the same DHS clusters. In both countries, community's access to family planning information and services are strongly associated with women’s modern contraceptive use and women living in communities in which people desire more children have a lower likelihood of using modern contraception. The distance of the cluster from a large city is inversely associated with women’s contraceptive use in Nepal; but no measures of community socioeconomic development are found to be significant determinants of women’s contraceptive use in Rwanda.