Subjective Expectations and Demand for Contraception

Please send an email to Nadine Ketel or Paul Muller if you are interested to participate in this seminar (series).

Authors: Grant Miller, Aureo de Paula and Christine Valente

Abstract: One-quarter of married, fertile-age women in Sub-Saharan Africa report not wanting a pregnancy and yet do not use contraceptives. To study this issue, we collect detailed data on women's subjective probabilistic beliefs and estimate a structural model of contraceptive choices. Our results indicate that costly interventions like eliminating supply constraints would only modestly increase contraceptive use. Alternatively, increasing partners' approval of methods, aligning partners' fertility preferences with women's, and correcting women's beliefs about pregnancy risk absent contraception have the potential to increase use considerably. Results from a before/after experiment testing this last finding are highly consistent with the structural estimates.

Read full paper here.