Figure 4: No Copyright Infringement Intended

Context:

• According to the National Family Health Survey-5, Onus of contraception is still on women

Findings

• Less than one in 10 men use condoms in India.
• while nearly four in 10 women undergo sterilisation to avoid pregnancy.
• Female sterilisation has gone up for the entire country from 36% in NFHS-4 (2015-16) to 37.9% in NFHS-5.

Reasons for the trends:

• family planning is considered the responsibility of women.
• For men, sex stands purely for pleasure. For women, it is often either about procreation, or involves the fear of getting pregnant.
• Men also believe that condoms reduce pleasure.
• Male sterilisation’s share in family planning methods has always been extremely low, despite the fact that it’s safer, quicker and easier. People believe that it can affect their virility and weaken them physically, rendering them unfit to work.
• Most women tend to think of family planning not for delaying and spacing but for completing the family size.

National Family Health Survey

• NFHS is a large-scale, multi-round survey conducted in a representative sample of households throughout India.
• The Phase-I provides data for 22 states/UTs and the fieldwork in the remaining 14 (Phase-II) States/UTs is under progress.
• All NFHSs have been conducted under the stewardship of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, with the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) Mumbai, serving as the nodal agency.

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