International Journal of Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Studies (IJIMS), 2014, Vol 1, No.10, 88-97. 88 Available online at http://www.ijims.com ISSN: 2348 – 0343 Determinants of Contraceptive Usage in India Sreevals Thyagarajan 1* , Reji B 2 and Saritha P Viswan 3 1 UnitedHealth Group Information Services Pvt. Ltd, Hyderabad, India 2 Assistant Director, Labour Bureau, Government of India, Chandigarh, India 3 Population Research Center, University Of Kerala, Trivandrum, India *Corresponding author: Sreevals Thyagarajan Abstract This study identifies the determinants of contraceptive usage in India based on the data from all the three consecutive rounds of National Family Health Surveys. Along with understanding the deterministic factors of contraceptive use in India, the pattern of change spread over the two recent decades in their influence on determining contraceptive usage is also highlighted in this study. Binary logistic regression was used in order to measure the likelihood of contraceptive usage by each of the independent variables. Though the level of influence of each independent variable varied across the three surveys, most of the variables considered were found to be significant. The development indicators show a major influence on the contraceptive usage throughout the period under study. More specifically, the education and occupation of not only the respondent, but also of their spouse found to be significant predictors of contraceptive usage. Also, exposure to mass media is an influencing factor for contraceptive usage. As the number of mass media to which the respondent exposed went up, the chances of adopting a contraceptive method also increased. Also, the low human development index from the states of central region confirms the role of overall development in determining contraceptive usage. 1. Introduction The world would not have been the same as it appears today unless a massive regulation program called family planning has not advanced. And India was the first country in the world to adopt an official population policy and launch an official family planning program way back in 1952. All development programs should be periodically analyzed their goals and methods, in the light of accumulated experience and the changes of situation which normally occur over a period of time [1]. Family Planning Program is not an exception though the official program later got expanded to cover maternal and child health, family welfare and nutrition as well. Unmet need is a valuable indicator for national family planning programs because it shows how well they are achieving the key mission of meeting the population‘s felt need for family planning [2]. Also, it is an important measure for assessing progress toward the Family Planning 2020 goal to extend family planning services to an additional 120 million women and girls by 2020 [3, 4]. The NFHS-3 survey (2005-2006) indicated that the unmet need for FP in India was 13 percent. Furthermore, nearly 21 percent of pregnancies are either unwanted or mistimed [5]. Since the unmet need for family planning is defined as the proportion of married women of reproductive age who are not using any contraceptive method but would like to postpone the next pregnancy [6]. These figures indicate the considerable proportion of the population not using any contraceptive method. So the present study focuses on identifying the determinants of contraceptive use in India. Globally, it is a well established fact that contraception is one of the most important proximate determinants of fertility [7, 8, 9]. Contraceptive use explains much of the recent fertility decline in India also [10, 11, 12, 13, 14]. To have a detailed understanding of the deterministic factors of contraceptive use in India and the pattern of change in their influence spread over the two recent decades, this study analyses the data from the all the