Search

We use detailed measures of social change over time, the proliferation of specific family planning and other health services, and couple’s fertility behaviors to document the independent effects of specific dimensions of health services on fertility limitation. Our investigation focuses on a setting in rural Nepal that experienced a transition from virtually no use of birth control in 1945 to the widespread use of birth control to limit fertility by 1995. Findings show that both provision of contraceptive methods and maternal and child health services have independent effects on the rate of ending childbearing. These results provide important new information about the consequences of specific dimensions of family planning and health services, and the relationship of those consequences to other simultaneous dimensions of social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]