| dc.description.abstract | Family planning is an important issue for many developing countries worldwide, including South
Asia. Fertility and contraceptive use in developing countries are associated with various markers
of socioeconomic status, most prominent of which is women's education. Contraceptive use
plays a significant role in controlling fertility, particularly in reaching the replacement level of
fertility. Similarly, Bhutan is going through a drastic decrease in total fertility rate and higher
contraceptive prevalence rate than average of south east asian region. This study seeks to
understand the determinants of socioeconomic factors and contraceptive decision based
autonomy. A total of 299 female participants who were married and current contraceptive users
were interviewed with informed consent prior to data collection. For analysis of the data, SPSS
was used. In this study, it was found that from the socio economic factors education was found to
be significantly associated. However the association was a direct relation between education
level and fertility rate contrary to usual inverse relationship. This can be understood through the
health system lens of Bhutan which provides free access and frequent monitoring of
contraceptive use. Accessibility to resources and awareness levels despite education backgrounds
might be assumed as the leading cause of the drastic decreasing fertility trend in Bhutan. | en_US |
