The Analysis of Socio-Economic and Demographic Factors Associated with Contraceptive Use Among Married Women of Reproductive Age in Rwanda

Contraceptive use is seen as pivotal for protecting women’s health and rights, influencing fertility and population growth, and helping to promote economic development. The main objective of this study was to identify the socio-economic and demographic factors associated with contraceptive use among married women of childbearing age in Rwanda.

The current study used survey logistic regression model in order to account for the complexity of sampling design and heterogeneity between the observations from the same cluster. The 2014/2015 Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey data was used as application.

The findings from this study revealed that education level of the woman, wealth quintile of the household, woman’s province of residence, woman’s age at first cohabitation, current age of the respondent, woman’s working status, number of living children, husband’s desire for more children compared to the wife or partner, religious affiliation, health facilities, exposure to contraceptive information in media and by family planning workers, and current age of husband or partner were significant determinants of contraceptive use among ever married women of reproductive age.

The findings from this study suggest improvement of exposure to the information of contraceptive use in health centres, empowerment of women for access to quality contraceptive use services and religious affiliation to play an important role to explain and inform their adherents on the importance of using a contraceptive method.