Associations between Tribal Status and Contraceptive Use in Rural Maharashtra, India

Battala Madhusudana, Population Council
Anita Raj, University of California, San Diego
Mohan Ghule, National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health (NIRRH) (ICMR)
Saritha Nair, National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health (NIRRH) (ICMR)
Jay Silverman, University of California, San Diego
Anindita Dasgupta, University of California, San Diego
Balaiah Donta, National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health (NIRRH) (ICMR)
Niranjan Saggurti, Population Council

Tribal population in rural India tend to have an increasing trend in fertility rate while India as a whole maintained a steady decline. Though two thirds of women are using modern contraception, majority of them adopting female sterilization and only five percent of women in rural Maharashtra reported to use modern spacing contraception. This study examines associations between tribal status, sociodemographic factors and spacing contraception use (SCU) in rural Maharashtra, India. Cross-sectional analyses were conducted with baseline data from married women (n=867) participating in the CHARM intervention. The adjusted logistic regression model indicated no significant association between tribal and SCU; significant covariates were age, education, parity and desire to become pregnant. Stratified analyses revealed that having more girls was associated with lower likelihood of SCU for tribals (AOR:1.27, 95%CI:0.99,1.65) but not for non-tribals. Findings reinforce growing work indicating son preference is linked with daughter aversion and driving SCU.