Effect of Son Preference on Contraceptive Use in Madhya Pradesh

Vandana Gautam, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

The present study tries to explore the association between son preference and contraceptive use in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The dataset of National Family Health Survey-3 has been used for the present study. In order to understand the extent of son preference, an index has been computed. Further, an index called Arnold’s index has been computed to measure the influence of son preference on contraceptive use. The study reveals that the main factors affecting contraceptive use are found to be age, number of living children, marital duration, education level, standard of living, mass media exposure and son preference. At each parity, contraceptive acceptance is higher among women, who have one or more living sons and the practice of contraceptive is found to be less among couples with no sons. The Arnold’s index depicts that, if gender preferences could be eliminated entirely, contraceptive use would increase by about nine percent.