Title: Husband’s migration status and contraceptive behaviours of women: Evidence from
Middle-Ganga Plain of India
Version: 1 Date: 10 Feb 2023
Reviewer's report:
Report: The authors first tried to contextualize the Husband’s migration status and contraceptive
behaviors of women: Evidence from Middle-Ganga Plain of. Although it is a good attempt in
the field of migration and reproductive health, it has several limitations in the analyses and
interpretation of the results. I would recommend a major revision. My comments are as follows:
1. Firstly, the rationality of the study needed to be more structured, and why your research is
importantly needed to be vibrant in the introduction section.
2. The nature of migration, like internal or international out-migration needed to be clear in the
title and methodology section.
3. Abstract could be based on major research findings.
4. The study is methodologically very poor, and needed to the analysis of sample selection bias
model to identify the differences in background characteristics between these two groups and
whether women with particular background characteristics were not using contraception for
which reason. When selecting the study population, I think the authors need to exclude currently
pregnant women and other criteria when there is no need to use any contraception. Please
read the following report to filter your study sample size. https://dhsprogram.com/publications/
publication-as25-analytical-studies.cfm
5. There is a need to add various predictors like the place of residence, mass-media exposure,
and remittances to make results more reliable.
6. Best of my knowledge, women using contraception when they have family planning demand
either spacing or limiting, and very less women using contraception to protect themselves
from STIs from husbands in Indian context, but the demand for family planning among left-
behind women was missing in the manuscript, which indicates it is the crude result. So, I am
suggesting authors to include the women who had family planning demands only. Furthermore,
degree of women's autonomy for healthcare utilization and household purchase, demand for
family planning (no, for spacing, for limiting), the sex composition of children (no, only
male, only female, both male & female) and source of contraceptive (public/private/other)
plays a significant role to in contraception decision making. So, it is meaningful to add as
predictors. Please read the recently published paper to understand the role of variables- https://
bmcwomenshealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12905-022-01706-0
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213398422000549
7. The study is based on micro-level survey; therefore, many academia is unable to understand
the study settings, sampling methods, sample selection, study population, aims and objective
of the study. I suggesting authors write their data source in a comprehensive manner for global
academic understanding.
8.  The discussion needed to more logical and based on key study findings.
9. Study limitations should be addressed, and further scope of the study needed to be
acknowledged
10.  Some discussion on supply-side factors is required from other secondary literature and other
data sources – with facts and figures. Limitation must discuss the drawback of the Middle Ganga
plain survey regarding data collection on 'context' and 'supply-side.'
11. Editing of the whole draft is required. Overall, English is good but can be better by solving
grammatical and spelling errors.