Unmet need for family planning in Turkey.

Abstract

Data from the 1988 Turkish Fertility and Health Survey covering 5257 ever-married women were employed to compute the unmet need for family planning for both modern methods and all methods. The method of Westoff (1988) which includes those desiring family limitation or spacing was applied although amenorrheic women were omitted because of insufficient data. The total ummet need was 25.2%; 13% if users of traditional methods are excluded. The need in rural areas was 29% compared to 23% in urban areas. The more industrialized western region of Turkey had the lowest need 20.6% while the eastern region had the highest 26.4%. Younger women had a higher demand for contraception while those under 20 desiring spacing had a need 5 times higher than woman desiring family limitation. Unmet need is inversely related to education. Need for specific methods in Turkey really means need for IUDs since pill failure rates in this population often surpass those of traditional methods. Unmet need for contraception in Turkey is about 25% a fairly high estimate similar to that of Korea and the Philippines.