Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Sep:41:101004.
doi: 10.1016/j.srhc.2024.101004. Epub 2024 Jul 4.

Inter-generational impact: Exploring the influence of older sister-in-law's contraceptive choices on her peer contraception adoption in India

Anjali Bansal  1 , Laxmi Kant Dwivedi  2 , Mrigesh Bhatia  3 , S V Subramanian  4
Affiliations
Free article

Inter-generational impact: Exploring the influence of older sister-in-law's contraceptive choices on her peer contraception adoption in India

Anjali Bansal et al. Sex Reprod Healthc. 2024 Sep.
Free article

Abstract

Objective: Social network-based reproductive decisions are critical. This study compares the effect of an older peer contraceptionuse on her younger peer's use, as they share the closest social network within the household, and tend to influence one another for reproductive decisions. In this study we considered peers as two sister-in-law living in the same household.

Methods: We used data from the fifth round of National Family Health Survey which was conducted between the year 2019 and 2021. We deployed multinomial multivariable logistic regression to find the association between older women contraception use on her younger peer. Also, an attempt has been made to determine contraceptive clustering within households in India and select states.

Results: The multinomial analysis found that all the women in the household used the similar method, but still relied only on the female sterilization as the sole method for their family planning. The multinomial multivariable method found that younger peers were 3.42 time odds more likely to use permanent method if her older peer had used it previously. Also, it was found 11% increase in any modern contraception use of younger peer if all her older peer will use any modern contraceptives in India. For all the states, the contraception clustering within household ranged from 5% to 14%, with highest in Himachal (14%).

Conclusion: Empowering older women as peer educators in contraception workshops can foster informed discussions, dispel myths, and promote the use of modern contraceptive methods among younger peers. Integrating such initiatives into government existing policies like Mission Parivar Vikas is crucial for improving contraceptive uptake, with ASHA workers and community health volunteers playing a pivotal role in delivering targeted education within households.

Keywords: Clustering; Contraception; Families; Family planning; India; NFHS; Peers; Social networking.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest disclosure: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Ethics approval statement: Ethical standards were kept, and informed consent was obtained from each participant. NFHS survey has been conducted by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, India under the aegis of MoHFW, New Delhi, India. The approval for NFHS-5 was obtained from the Ethics Review Board of the IIPS, Mumbai, India, and the ICF International Review Board (IRB). In this survey, consent was obtained from the participants before the commencement of the interview. NFHS published gathered data with no identifiable information about the survey participants. Therefore, no ethics statement is required for this work.

LinkOut - more resources