Growing urbanization, climate change and environmental pollution were also contributing to the problem. As a result, diseases that used to be under control are now reappearing. This was linked to a broad-based campaign against female circumcision, which intensified during that period. Outside China and India, the pill is the most popular contraceptive, used by about 12 per cent of married women, according to a recent issue of Population Reports, the quarterly journal published by Johns Hopkins Population Information Program. In China and India, family planning programmes have emphasized long-term methods.
Many women use the pill at some point in their lives, it reports.
In the United States, for example, an estimate in the journal concluded that 80 per cent of all women born since 1945 had used the pill at some time. The number of women who currently use the pill continues to grow. The ILO reported that more than 40 per cent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia live in poverty, with the proportion increasing. Out of the world's 150 million unemployed, it stated, no more than one quarter has a form of unemployment benefit. The major focus must be on the extension of coverage to these workers, it proposed.