Unmet Need for Family Planning in Developing Countries and Implications for Population Policy
Author(s)
Casterline, John B.; Sinding, Steven W.
Abstract
Our purpose here is to reexamine the utility of unmet need for family planning as an organizing concept for population policies and for reproductive health and family planning programs. Throughout the article our concern is the unmet need of reproductive-age women, although later in the article we briefly consider unmet need for family planning of men and, adding further complexity, of couples. After reviewing the development of the concept and the debate surrounding it from the 1960s to the present, we address several questions that have been raised about the concept: (1) Is the concept valid, that is, are contradictions between fertility preferences and contraceptive behavior real? (2) Does unmet need have any bearing on the larger process of fertility transition? (3) What is the correspondence between unmet need, the demand for contraception, and the demand for family planning services? (4) Has the concept been too narrowly formulated? (5) Is unmet need amenable to programmatic action? (6) What is the role of unmet need in justifying population policies and informing the development of programs?
