page_title: Family planning
section_title: Demand for family planning
hierarchical_section_title: Family planning / Demand for family planning
context_page_description: Family planning services are defined as "educational, comprehensive medical or social activities which enable individuals, including minors, to determine freely the number and spacing of their children and to select the means by which this may be achieved". Family planning may involve consideration of the number of children a woman wishes to have, including the choice to have no children, as well as the age at which she wishes to have them. These matters are influenced by external factors such as marital situation, career considerations, financial position, and any disabilities that may affect their ability to have children and raise them. If sexually active, family planning may involve the use of contraception and other techniques to control the timing of reproduction.
  Other aspects of family planning include sex education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception counseling and management, and infertility management. Family planning, as defined by the United Nations and the World Health Organization, encompasses services leading up to conception.
context_section_description: 214 million women of reproductive age in developing countries who do not want to become pregnant are not using a modern contraceptive method. This could be a result of a limited choice of methods, limited access to contraception, fear of side-effects, cultural or religious opposition, poor quality of available services, user or provider bias, or gender-based barriers. In Africa, 24.2% of women of reproductive age do not have access to modern contraction. In Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, the unmet need is 10–11%. Meeting the unmet need for contraception could prevent 104,000 maternal deaths per year, a 29% reduction of women dying from postpartum hemorrhage or unsafe abortions.
  According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs: Population Division, 64% of the world uses contraceptives, 12% of the world population's need for contraceptives is unmet. In the least developed countries, 22% of the population do not have access to contraceptives, and 40% use contraceptives. The unmet need for modern contraceptives is very high in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and western Asia. Africa has the lowest rate of contraceptive use (33%) and highest rate of unmet need (22%). Northern America has the highest rate of contraceptive use (73%) and the lowest unmet need (7%). Latin America and the Caribbean follows closely behind with 73% contraceptive use and 11% unmet need. Europe and Asia are on par: Europe has a 69% contraceptive use rate and 10% unmet need, Asia has a 68% contraceptive use and 10% unmet need. Although unmet need is lower in Asia because of the large population in this region, the number of women with unmet need is 443 million, compared to 74 million in Europe  Oceania has a 59% contraceptive use rate and 15% unmet need. When comparing the regions within these continents, Eastern Asia ranks the highest rate of contraceptive use (82%) and lowest unmet need (5%). Western Africa ranks the lowest rate of contraceptive use (17%). Middle Africa ranks the highest unmet need (26%). Unmet need is higher among poorer women; in Bolivia and Ethiopa unmet need is tripled and doubled among poor populations. However, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia the rates of unmet need are different by 1–2 percentage points. This suggests that as wealthier women begin to want smaller families, they will increasingly seek out family planning methods.
  Substantial unmet need has provoked family planning programs by governments and donors, but the impact of family planning programs on fertility and contraceptive use remains somewhat unsettled. "Demand theory" argues that in traditional agricultural societies, fertility rates are driven by the desire to offset high mortality, thus as society modernizes, the costs of raising children increases, reducing their economic value, and resulting in a decline in desired number of children. Under this theory, family planning programs will have a marginal impact. Bongaarts (2014) shows that using a country case study approach, both stronger and weaker family programs reduce the unmet need for contraceptives and increases use by making modern contraceptives more widely available and removing obstacles to use. Also, the demand that is satisfied and the proportion of women using modern methods increased. The programs may have an additional effect of diffusing the ideas related to family planning and thus raising the demand for contraception. As a result, a small decrease in unmet need may be offset by a rise in demand. Nonetheless, even in countries where it is assumed that family programs will make a marginal impact, Bongaarts shows that family planning programs can potentially increase contraceptive use and increase/decrease demand depending on the preexisting attitudes of the community.
caption: Demand for family planning satisfied by modern methods as of 2017.[53]