Contraceptive Use and Unmet Need for Family Planning among Tribal Women in India and Selected Hilly States

Ranjan Kumar Prusty, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

The paper provides a comprehensive picture of knowledge and contraceptive use among Scheduled Tribes of India and selected central hilly states. An attempt is also made to know how far scheduled tribes differ from non-tribes in these states namely Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh using information collected in the third round of District Level Household Survey. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used for the purpose of analysis. Knowledge of temporary contraceptive method is considerably lower among tribal women as compared to their non-tribal counterparts. The result shows that contraceptive use among tribal women is lower than the non-tribal women in these states. The unmet need for family planning among them is quite high especially in the state of Jharkhand. Multivariate analysis substantiates the role of women and husband’s education, age of women and number of boys surviving in use of any modern method of contraception.