Topic Area: Fertility Control
Geographic Area: Bangladesh
Focal Question: Is Bangladesh's Method of Fertility Control Adequate for Sustainability?
Sources:
(1) J. Chowdhury, Ruhul Amin, and A.U. Amhed, "Poor Women's Participation in Income Generating Projects and their Fertility Regulation in Rural Bangladesh: Evidence From a Recent Survey", World Development, April 1994, p 555-564.
Reviewer: Caitlin P. Lane, Colby College '96
Review:

The 1974 World Population Conference in Bucharest ,the 1984 International Conference on Population in Mexico, and the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo have stressed the integration of population policies with development policy. Population control as a means of sustainable development in Bangladesh has become a major issue. This particular study concludes that "the participation in income-generating projects by poor rural women has led to an increased level of contraceptive use as well as a decreased level of desire for additional children". In Bangladesh, an ever-growing number of both governmental and nongovernmental organizations (the Grameen Bank, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee and the Bangladesh Rural Development Board) have begun programs in the quest towards sustainable fertility rates.

This study identifies three main justifications for these projects (helping to decrease fertility) in developing countries. The program can relieve the women of a condition of extreme social and psychological dependence. Physical and social isolation is common due to the system of female seclusion in rural Bangladesh. Second, it could enable the women to gain social support and acceptance of any decision to have fewer children. This behavior is commonly dissuaded by the hostile environment within and beyond her household. Finally, a combination of peer group support and cohesion is created through group formation and interaction. This works to alter women's knowledge and attitude, as well as to support their decision making concerning reproduction.

All income-generating projects by these three agencies have a population education component designed to encourage lower fertility rates. Programs to assist the poor through the use of collateral-free loans have become quite popular in Bangladesh since the late 1980's. Relying on peer pressure to encourage repayment, such programs have been successful, as loan recovery rates range between 96% and 100%. Results show that credit provision has been associated with productive self-employment, increase in income, accumulation of capital, and meeting basic needs of the poor loanees. A variety of income-generating activities are undertaken by participating women in order to pay back the loans. Such activities include: paddy husking, poultry raising, weaving, goat-raising and horticulture. In addition, other complementary government financed social development activities such as sanitation, health care, nutrition, functional education, and population education are emphasized by all three programs.

Family planning is actively and routinely promoted in group meetings, loan workshops, and training sessions which are financed by the agencies. A group of women constituting a loan group are neighbors from the same village, and are likely to be aware of each other's fertility and fertility decisions. There is great pressure from within the group to have a high loan recovery rate, to avoid the penalty of disqualification from loan entitlement or expulsion from the group in the event of noncompliance with group objectives. The programs also encourage groups to set aside funds which may be used by individual members in times of crisis. The most important influences on women's fertility attitudes and behaviors are the group meetings, and training sessions, in which both loan recipients and program staff openly exchange ideas. Women are likely to break their cultural resistance to change through this exposure to new ideas, role models, and lifestyles.

This case study is based on a 1992 household sample survey of 2,285 female recipients (as well as 1,168 counterpart nonbeneficiaries) of collateral-free loans from three relatively large rural development agencies in Bangladesh. The comparison group of nonbeneficiaries came from neighboring geographic areas with similar communication facilities and socioeconomic characteristics such as literacy rate, topography, access to electric power, and presence of other developmental programs. Only married women within the reproductive age group of 14 and 49 were selected. Following a random selection process, 3,453 total women were selected and interviewed. The survey, funded by US agency for International Development (USAID), collected detailed information on the women's socioeconomic backgrounds, their income generating activities, and their knowledge, attitudes, and practices of family planning.

The dependent variable was contraceptive (temporary, permanent, male, female) use, using a code of one if a couple is currently using a contraceptive and zero if they are not. The study controlled for various socioeconomic and demographic background variables that may affect the results. These independent variables were: the number of living children, years of schooling, age, ownership of assets, and husband's occupation. The study used "a logistic regression applied in multivariate analyses".

Results show that knowledge of contraceptive methods (through the population education component and group meetings with staff members) and the desire for no more children were higher among the beneficiaries of income-generating projects compared to nonbeneficiaries. About 60% of the beneficiaries were current users of contraceptives, compared to about 38% use by nonbeneficiaries. Also, about 80% of the beneficiaries desired no more children, while only 63% of nonbeneficiaries shared the same desire. The income generating projects led to an increase in contraceptive use regardless of their population education components. Over 50% who did not participate in their population education components were current users of contraceptives, compared to 38.4% of the nonbeneficiaries. This suggests that the income-generating projects have an independent effect on the demand for fertility regulation and contraceptive. This effect is stronger than the results from population education activities. The positive effects of income generating projects and their education component dealing with contraceptive use is more significant than the effect of other socioeconomic variables such as the women's education, husband's education, or possession of modern consumer items.

Establishing a way to draw poor women out of their traditional female confinement within the households and providing opportunities for female income-generating activities, has lead to increased contraceptive use and desire for decreased family size. These effects were much higher than have been achieved by the existing national family planning program of Bangladesh (Amin et al., 1993). The women's low socioeconomic position has been more than compensated by the opportunities received from the projects. Many reasons have been offered for this. Population education components of the projects through small group meetings helped the women by providing face to face information about fertility regulation. Also, people trusted the projects as they realized they had taken care of the basic economic survival needs of the poor women. Many view the staffs of the income generating projects as being more credible than the usual health or family planning groups. Third, the requirement of group formation, led to pressure for members to comply to the group's norms of smaller family size. The possibility that additional children by a member will reduce a members ability to repay loans, for which the group is jointly liable, may reinforce the group influence on fertility regulation. Finally, education or skill training may inadvertently influence fertility regulation by changing their clients' ideas and perspectives.

The income generating projects have achieved remarkable success among a population that has been ignored by conventional development programs. This success has been achieved by a self-sustaining approach of repayable loan programs. This approach of joint rural development and population control would also raise the standard of living of the large populations which are close to or below the subsistence level. Bangladesh appears to be on its way towards achieving an economically, as well as socially, sustainable fertility rate.