“The dark side of birth control”. Why men’s contraceptive use is understudied by demographers?
(2024) 49th Quetelet Seminar: Behind and Beyond Numbers: Population Research Through Critical Lenses
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- Abstract
- While women’s contraceptive use is generally well documented worldwide, little is known about men’s use of contraception. The aim of this paper is to understand demographers’ biases in studying men’s contraceptive use. To do this, we propose to rely on the 7 fertility survey programs conducted worldwide that have collected contraceptive use worldwide from the 1960s to the present day: Knowledge, Attitude and Practices, Comparative Fertility Surveys, World Fertility Surveys, Contraceptive Prevalence Surveys, Family and Fertility Surveys, Demographic and Health Surveys, Gender and Generation Surveys. For each of these programs, we analyze the sampling recommendations and standard questionnaires provided. Our results show that, although men were asked about their contraceptive use as early as the 1960s, and demographers concluded that their answers were useful, they were not included in the surveys conducted in the 1970s. If they are surveyed again in low- and middle-income countries from the 1980s onwards, it is primarily at the initiative of the countries themselves, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa which were seeking to find out whether men were limiting women’s contraceptive use. In high-income countries, men began to be questioned again about their contraceptive use in the 1990s, as the themes of fertility surveys broadened. Research questions on their contribution to contraceptive work struggled to emerge, with the result that the data are generally poorly exploited. We conclude that gender issues in the field of contraception have generally been neglected by demographers, leading to men’s contraceptive use remaining the dark face of birth control.
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Le Guen, M. (2024). “The dark side of birth control”. Why men’s contraceptive use is understudied by demographers? 49th Quetelet Seminar: Behind and Beyond Numbers: Population Research Through Critical Lenses.