The UN Sustainable Development Goals set a target of ensuring universal access to reproductive healthcare services by 2030, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes. Providing family planning services is one of the most cost-effective public health interventions, contributing to significant reductions in maternal mortality and morbidity as well as overall socio‑economic development (UNFPA, 2019[1]).
Reproductive health requires having access to effective methods of contraception and appropriate healthcare through pregnancy and childbirth, to allow women and their partners to make decisions on fertility and provide parents with the best chance of having a healthy baby.
Women who have access to contraception can protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy. Spacing births can also have positive benefits on both the reproductive health of the mother and the overall health and well-being of the child.
Modern contraceptive methods are more effective than traditional ones (WHO/Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2018[2]). The prevalence of modern methods use varies across countries and territories in Asia-Pacific. It was high on average across high-income and upper-middle-income countries and territories (65% and 59.4%, respectively). In a few of these countries and territories including China (80.5%), New Zealand (74.8%), Thailand (70.8%), DPRK (68.8%) and Korea (67.6%), at least two‑thirds of married or in union women of reproductive age reported using modern contraceptive methods (Figure 4.1).The average prevalence was low in lower-middle- and low-income countries and territories (45.3%). In Pakistan, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Nepal, less than one out of three married or in union women reported using any modern method.
Based on population sizes, fertility rates, social welfare policies and regulations and service availability, differences in demand for family planning satisfied with modern methods exist in all reporting Asia-Pacific countries. In Nepal, demand satisfied is about 30 percentage points higher amongst women with lowest education than amongst women with highest education, with a similar pattern observed in other reporting countries except in the Philippines. (Figure 4.2). In Mongolia, demand satisfied is 13 percentage points higher amongst women living in rural areas than amongst those living in urban areas (72% vs. 59%), while the proportion of women living in urban areas reporting demand for family planning satisfied is slightly higher than the proportion of women living in rural areas in Bangladesh (79% vs. 77%), Pakistan (59% vs. 56%) and India (75% vs. 74%). Based on income levels, the demand satisfied is 15 percentage points higher amongst women from households in the lowest income quintile than amongst women in the highest quintile in Mongolia (75% vs. 60%), while the proportion of women in the highest income quintile reporting demand for family planning satisfied is higher than the proportion of women in the lowest income quintile in Pakistan (59% vs. 54%) and India (75% vs. 69%) (Figure 4.2). Adolescents and young women generally have the lowest proportion of modern contraceptive use. In all regions, less than 30% of adolescents and young women aged 15‑19 years use contraception and less than 5% in Western Asia and in Central and Southern Asia. In Central and Southern Asia, unmet need for family planning is highest among women aged 20 to 29, indicating a large gap between fertility intentions and use of modern methods of contraception among young women (UN, 2022[3]).
