Poor women's participation in income-generating projects and their fertility regulation in rural Bangladesh: Evidence from a recent survey

Abstract

The paper assesses the impact of poor women's participation in income-generating projects on their knowledge, attitude, and practice of family planning in rural Bangladesh. By analyzing a 1992 national level household sample survey data collected from the female recipients of collateral-free loans of three relatively large rural development agencies in Bangladesh—the present study shows that the participation in income-generating projects by poor rural women has led to an increased level of contraceptive use and to a decreased level of desire for additional children. These effects are much higher than those of the corresponding levels for Bangladesh as a whole, indicating both the additional effect of income-generating projects as well as the effects of their population education components. Implications of these findings for inducing further increase in contraceptive use in Bangladesh are discussed in the paper.