Husband's approval of contraceptive use in metropolitan Indonesia: program implications

Husband's approval of contraceptive use plays a decisive role in Indonesia. Despite this, no previous study of contraceptive use in Indonesia has evaluated the importance of husband's approval. Such evaluation is especially important in metropolitan areas where family planning programs have encountered more difficulty than those elsewhere in recruiting contraceptive users. Using data from the first Indonesia Contraceptive Prevalence Survey for metropolitan cities, husband's approval and other determinants of contraceptive use among fecund women were evaluated. The levels of contraceptive use varied among cities, ranging from 34.2 percent in Ujung Pandang to 56.5 percent in Semarang. For all cities, however, husband's approval was the most important determinant, followed by number of living children and wife's education. Among women who desire to have no more children, 17.4 percent and 27.8 percent of contraceptive nonuse in Medan and Jakarta, respectively, was attributable to husband's disapproval. Because most of the family planning programs in Indonesia are designed to serve primarily women, the finding of husband's approval as the most important determinant has important program implications.