The Role of Family Planning and Targeted Credit Programs in Demographic Change in Bangladesh Book

This paper pursues the following questions: 1) whether family planning programs were important in contributing to the recent fertility decline in Bangladesh; and 2) whether targeted credit programs for the poor aiming to alleviate poverty could improve the use of contraceptives in a country where both infant mortality and marital fertility rates are high and where contraceptive use and marriage ages are low. Based on the household survey data from 87 rural villages in Bangladesh, this paper suggests that government family planning programs as well as other health care interventions have contributed toward the recent reduction in fertility by increasing contraceptive use and reducing infant mortality. At the same time, targeted credit program placement such as the Grameen Bank and the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) increased contraceptive use and reduced the fertility rate in addition to family planning program and other health care interventions. However, increasing employment and income-earning opportunities, especially for women, and supplying family planning and health services are short-run measures for curtailing both infant mortality and fertility. The long-run policy option should be to promote the education levels of both men and women to raise productivity, which, in turn, will increase contraceptive use and reduce infant mortality.