The Effect of Reframing the Goals of Family Planning Programs from Limiting Fertility to Birth Spacing: Evidence from Pakistan.

ABSTRACT: Contraceptive prevalence in Pakistan has plateaued near 34 percent for over a decade, suggesting that fertility levels are likely to stay high unless effective interventions are designed. We evaluate the Family Advancement for Life and Health 2007-2012 (FALAH), a family planning project implemented in 31 districts of Pakistan. Deviating from previous programs, FALAH emphasized birth spacing-as opposed to limiting family size-as the primary purpose of contraceptive use. We use Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey to evaluate FALAH's impact on continuous and binary measures of birth intervals. To estimate the causal effects of the project, we compare the outcomes for multiple children born to the same mother before and after the project. We find that FALAH increased interbirth intervals by

SUBMITTER: Naz S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8362150 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature