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Abstract
Modernization tends to raise the level of contraceptive use in a society. Typically, the first ones to contracept are the "modern"; they tend to live in urban rather than rural areas and are better educated, for example. Using contraception for delaying or spacing births is hypothesized to be a more sophisticated form of family planning than contraceptive use for limiting the number of births.
This dissertation examines the use of contraception for delaying and spacing births in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Korea and how timing of first contraceptive use affects the ability to control later unwanted fertility. Log linear analyses of current use and first use show that women who deliberately delay or space births tend to have more modern characteristics than women who are not using contraception or wait until after completing their desired family size to begin use. Of the three countries studied, Costa Rica has the greatest proportion of women using contraception for delaying or spacing purposes, followed by Colombia, then Korea.
Further analysis shows that in Colombia and Costa Rica, women who use contraception for spacing or delaying births tend to experience less unwanted fertility (than women who begin to use later) primarily because they postpone their last wanted birth, which shortens their exposure to the risk of unwanted fertility. Also in Colombia and Costa Rica, women who first used contraception after an unwanted birth are the group most likely to experience two or more additional unwanted births within five years after beginning contraceptive use. The results for Korea and some of the results for Colombia and Costa Rica do not follow theoretically expected trends because of a suspected bias in the variable, desired family size, which was used in the construction of two other variables, unwanted births and timing of first use, and therefore confounds their relationship.
