Family Planning in Four Latin American Countries--Knowledge, Use and Unmet Need: Some Findings from the World Fertility Survey

Abstract

This is a digest of the findings of the World Fertility Survey (WFS) begun in 1971 on several aspects of family planning in 4 Latin American countries: Costa Rica Panama the Dominican Republic and Colombia. The WFS survey included the collection of data on contraceptive knowledge and practice knowledge of family planning service availability ideal family size child spacing and unmet family planning needs. The author points out that there is a great deal of difference in many areas of family planning among the 4 countries; Costa Rica for example has a highly developed and widespread program while Panama has a deficiency in rural service availability. Statistics resulting from the WFS are included in table form showing correlations between contraceptive use and educational level age numbers of children sex of living children type of contraceptive method desire for more children and desire to stop having children. The report deals specifically with perceived rather than concrete data in the area of knowledge availability and desire for more children. The author feels that in Colombia and Costa Rica especially a stepped up program of population education in family planning could result in more dramatic reductions in the fertility rate.