Household Poverty and Contraceptive Non-Intention Among Women of Childbearing Age in Union in Burundi: Validity of the Theory of Intergenerational Flows of Wealth

Abstract

The Republic of Burundi wants to control population growth by increasing the prevalence of contraception by 1.5% per year. However, the intention to use modern contraception is declining among women of childbearing age. The proportion of women wishing to use contraception has dropped from 66% in 2010 to 53% in 2016–2017. This research aims to verify whether household poverty is at the root of this contraceptive non-intention of women whose couples hope for better wealth from a large group of offspring. Data from the 2010 and 2016–2017 Demographic and Health Surveys of Burundi were analyzed using multilevel logistic regression. There is no significant difference in contraceptive non-intention found between women from poor households and those with medium standards of living (p =.587 ˃.05) or rich (p =.098 ˃.05) in 2010 or between women from wealthy households and those from poor (p =.101 ˃.05) or medium (p =.689 ˃.05) standards of living in 2016–2017. Standard of living does not count among the principal factors of contraceptive non-intention in Burundi. Instead, attention should be paid to sociocultural factors.