State of World Population 2012 - Country Page List - UNFPA

CHAPTER
FOUR
The social and economic
impact of family planning
Being able to exercise the right to family planning—and more broadly the
right to sexual and reproductive health—is instrumental for the realization of
other rights and also yields many economic benefits to individuals, households,
communities and whole countries. Better reproductive health, including family
planning, affects the economy—and therefore sustainable development—in
numerous ways. Women who have fewer risky births, healthier pregnancies and
t
Eduardo Mondlane
University.
Geography class.
©UNFPA/Pedro Sá da
Bandeira
safer deliveries face lower risks of mortality
and improved overall health.Their babies are
born healthier and their children’s health is
better early in life. These improvements in
health produce an array of economic benefits:
greater investments in schooling, greater productivity,
greater labour force participation
and eventually increased income, savings,
investment and asset accumulation. There
is little evidence, however, about the impact
on the lives of men.
Researchers attempting to document the
magnitude of these relationships face several
hurdles, partly because the use of family planning
depends on a variety of other variables,
including income, education (particularly
female education), opportunities for female
employment, the pace of industrialization and
urbanization, cultural and social norms and
the cost of raising children. These variables are
difficult to measure and have strong effects on
each other.
Family planning and the well-being
of women
Health impact
The economic impact of improved reproductive
health on women’s lives begins with improvements
in their own health, in which access
to family planning plays a key role. Access to
family planning reduces overall fertility, the
numbers of unintended pregnancies as well as
the number of risky pregnancies, which then
reduces the risks of maternal mortality and
long-term morbidity (Maine et al., 1996).
Access to family planning can also lead to more
optimal birth spacing, which in turn improves
overall maternal health by lowering maternal
depletion syndrome and the risks of premature
delivery and complications (Conde-Agudelo,
Rosas-Bermudez and Kafury-Goeta, 2007).
In Sri Lanka for example, the sharpest
declines in maternal mortality occurred during
its period of fertility decline. Today, Sri Lanka
has one of the highest contraceptive prevalence
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