A comparative analysis of contraceptive use in Africa: evidence from DHS

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show a comparative analysis of contraceptive use in areas of traditionally high fertility that have gone through profound changes. Data have been taken from the latest Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). Logistic regression models were adopted for four selected representative countries, namely Egypt, Mali, Namibia and Niger. There were two selection criteria: data should be recent, and selected countries should have high (Egypt 57.4%; Namibia 46.4%) or low (Mali 7.5%; Niger 10.0%) contraceptive use. The probability of using contraception when a woman has had one to four children is 2.4 times higher than when they have had no children. Contraception data are always gathered at a point of time, but crosssectional data are not sufficient to understand all the mechanisms hidden behind contraceptive use. Different contraceptive behaviours need good estimation tools to develop specific family planning programmes.