Perception and Practice of Family Planning: An Anthropological Study among the assamese Caste Hindus and Muslim Population in Goalpara District, Assam

Abstract

The present paper made an attempt to make a study of the impact of socio-cultural characteristics on family planning behaviour of the Assamese Caste Hindus and the Muslim population in the Goalpara district of Assam. The study was conducted in 2015 in six villages of Goalpara district among 600 ever-married women, 300 from each population groups within the age group 15-49 years. The study reveals that there are wide differences between the knowledge of family planning and its practices in the two population groups. The proportion of family planning user is comparatively higher in Assamese Caste Hindu population compared to the Muslim population. In both the population groups, temporary spacing method is widely prevalent compared to the permanent method of contraception. Findings of the study shows that socio-cultural background like occupational status, educational attainment, economic condition, opinion about ideal number of children, etc plays an important role in determining the family planning behavior of the two studied populations.