Title: Family planning differentials among caste groups in Bihar, India

Abstract

The family welfare program in India has experienced significant changes in terms of policy but many goals remain under-achieved. The use of family planning is low in Bihar than the national average. The family planning use varies by socio-economic and demographic characteristics of women and differentials that exist among caste groups. Therefore, we aimed to examine the family planning differentials in the context of socio-economic and demographic characteristics among caste groups in Bihar. The data has been analyzed from the fourth National Family Health Survey (NFHS 4) conducted during 2015-2016 in India. The analysis of data has done by using bi-variate, and logistic regression analyses to observe the association between family planning use and socio-economic and demographic characteristics. The analysis reveals that family planning differentials exist among caste groups. The knowledge of any family planning method and any modern method is universal and it does not vary much among caste groups in Bihar.Current contraceptive use is higher among the women of other castes than among SC/ST and OBC women. Female sterilization is the most widely used method followed by IUD, condom, and pill among all the caste groups. Contraceptive use is high among the women who have three or more surviving children and this proportion is higher for the women who have two or more sons than the women who have two or more daughters invariably of methods and caste groups in Bihar.The logistic regression analysis on contraceptive use show that differentials exist between the caste groups and the rural areas are lagging behind urban areas. There is a positive relationship between education, wealth and family planning. The use of the family planning method significantly increases with the age of the women, marital duration, education and household wealth index.