Analysis of motivation to contraceptive use applying the weighting procedure

This paper presents a technique for scaling contraceptive use motivation for the sample population of the Family Planning Health Services Project in Matlab. The project, which began in 1977, is conducted by the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. The hypothesis of the research is that through the use of a scaling algorithm the power of demographic characteristics, attitudes, and intentions for predicting contraceptive use can be enhanced. The analysis shows that two factors explain use motivation. Scale 1 is weighted for demographic variables and desire for additional children, while Scale 2 is comprised of education and intentions of contraceptive use. Both scales have a pronounced independent predictive power. We conclude that scaling has improved upon the predictive power of indicators of reproductive motivations.