Determinants of contraceptive method choice in rural Bangladesh

Bangladesh has experienced a dramatic decline in fertility, unprecedented for a country with such poor social and economic conditions. The total fertility rate (TFR) declined from about 7.0 children per woman in the 1970s to around 3.5 per woman in the period 1993-1994 (ESCAP, 1981; Mitra and others, 1994). The Bangladesh Family Planning Programme is recognized as a success story in the contemporary third world (Cleland and others, 1994). However, the country still has a high population growth rate and needs to reach replacement-level fertility as soon as possible. The national contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) of about 45 per cent (as of 1993) should be raised to over 70 per cent to achieve replacement-level fertility.