The high fertility rate leading to the rapid growth of country’s population is a major hindrance towards the development of a nation. Keeping this in mind, India was the first country to launch a well-defined family planning (FP) programme in 1951 with the major objective to balance the population with resources available. India’s current demographic phase is characterized by high fertility and moderate mortality rates. As a result, the country’s population is growing rapidly with about 18 million people being added to it annually, to give a 2.1 per cent increase per annum. Despite a 40-year old Family Planning Programme, India’s 1991 census has shown a population increase of 160 million during the 1981- 91 decade. The gap between expressed favorable attitude towards the small family norm and knowledge and practice of family planning amongst Indian couples is intriguing. Family Planning basically, refers to the practices that help individuals or couples to avoid unwanted births, bring about wanted births, regulate the intervals between pregnancies, control the time at which births occurs in relation to the age of parents and determines the number of children in the family. Under the programme, various training programs have been conducted to train health care providers. Several health workers, both male and female became multipurpose workers responsible for providing a set of basic family planning, maternal and child health (MCH), and public health services. A community oriented service-network was developed to expand family planning and MCH services. In 1977 conscious shift was made in the policy to include voluntary family planning along with the other health care services under the umbrella of ‘Family Welfare’ and various centers have been set up in rural (primary health centers, community health centers etc.) as well as in urban areas (postpartum centers, urban family welfare centers, dispensaries and hospitals). Services administered through the programme have been broadened to include immunization, pregnancy, delivery and postpartum care, and preventive and curative health care.

Get Help With Your Essay

If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!
Find out more about our Essay Writing Service

The range of contraceptive products delivered through the programme also widened. The various contraceptive methods are categorized as barrier, chemical, natural or surgical (Weeks 2002). Surgical method includes sterilization (vasectomy and tubectomy) which is a permanent and irreversible method of birth control. Induced abortion is the post–conception method of family planning and is performed if there is a need to terminate an unwanted pregnancy because of failed contraception. Despite of many temporary methods, the emphasis was put on sterilization of male or female. Although sterilization is a safe and most effective technique it cannot serve the needs of all couples in the different stages of the reproductive life-cycle. Thus, a large proportion of couples remained unserved because of non-availability of proper contraceptive technology. So, the new approach emphasized the target-free promotion of contraceptive use among eligible couples, providing the couples a choice of contraceptive methods and encouraged them towards adequate spacing of births (at least three years birth interval). The National Population Policy (2000) has set the task of addressing unmet need for contraception as its immediate objective. Attitudes towards fertility regulation, knowledge of birth-control methods, access to the means of fertility regulation and communication between husband and wife about desired family size are essential for effective family planning (Dabral and Malik 2004). Various factors governs the acceptance of contraception e.g., religion (NFHS 1998-99, 2002), number of sons in family (Bhasin and Nag 2002), and education of husband and wife (Bhasin and Nag 2002), etc. Besides, spousal communication also increases the likelihood of contraceptive use (Kamal 1999; Ghosh 2001). Sterilization is usually accepted when the couple is sure that they have completed their family size and gender preference (Bhasin and Nag 2002).

Although the family welfare programme has made an important contribution towards improving the health of mothers and children, there are some major impediments. Even though a huge infrastructure has been established through out the country to deliver an integrated package of health and family welfare services, the quality and outreach services need improvement. According to Santhya (2003), the contraceptive prevalence rate in Meghalya is just 4.7 (2.8 for sterilization and 1.9 for other temporary methods), which is lowest in the whole India. This drew the attention towards the need to carry out a study in Meghalaya. So, the present study was conducted with an objective to study the extent of awareness of women with regard to family planning, i.e. birth control measures and awareness level regarding the Government schemes on family planning among the Khasi women of East Khasi Hills, Meghalya.

BACKGROUND

Family Planning is a program or practice to regulate the number and spacing of children in a family through the practice of contraception or other methods of birth control. Since the world and also India is facing with the problem of overpopulation. Government as well as non government agencies is taking major step to overcome this problem. In India the use of contraceptive methods increased from 13 per cent in 1971 to 56 per cent in 2005/06, and fertility declined from about 6 births per woman in the 1960s and 1970s to about 2.7 births in 2004. This decline of more than 3 births per woman represents about 85 per cent of the decline required to reach replacement fertility: 2.1 births per woman. As per the latest official data, the total number of family planning acceptors in India decreased by 5.1 % between 2011-12 and 2012-13. The data revealed that condom is the most preferred method of family planning while sterilizations the least adopted means. The number of couples adopting various methods for family planning, including spacing methods was found to be 30.2 million, with 13.9 million preferring condoms to any other means. The total Family Planning Acceptors in India have increased over the years but in recent years especially after 2007-08 the number of accepters has shown a gradual decreasing trend. The contraceptive prevalence rate for currently married women is the lowest at 24 percent in Meghalaya among all the states in India. The national average is 56 percent. The rise in contraceptive use and the pace of fertility decline, however, has not been uniform throughout the country. There are disparities in contraceptive use and fertility between the poor and the rich, and between the educated and the uneducated. While the country has also made tremendous progress in terms of economic growth, these disparities in contraceptive use and fertility have important implications for the future of the country. The purpose of this study is to review the current status of the family planning programme in East Khasi Hills District, Meghalaya, to assess the factors responsible for these inequalities.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Over population is widely regarded as a major social and economic global problem since it is directly connected with the economic growth of the country and therefore welfare of the person and her/his family. Over population is an enormous issue and is important indicator of lack of human welfare in developing countries like India. Over population refers to the condition where the population growth of a country has overcome the economic growth of a country .It is also an indicator of poverty especially in the rural as well as urban area (i.e., more mouth to feed in). This trend has grave consequences for countries like India and many other developing countries, where population growth has been quite high and where employment generation falls far short of the rate of the population growth. It also engenders the issue of inequality and social justice. Due to this reason the government through the department of Family Welfare is implementing the National Family Welfare Programme by encouraging the production and utilization of contraceptives all over the country.

In the North East State of India including Meghalaya, women enjoy greater visibility and mobility than women of other communities in the country. This is often cited to portray a picture of equity between men and women in the region. Education has been the main catalyst in bringing about far-reaching changes in the status of women and to a great extent education of women in the region has been fairly non-discriminatory. Despite the fact still many people has a large and big family and are not aware of the various method of family planning or even if they are aware of it they are not access to it. This may be due to any social stigma or cultural factors, against their faith or maybe against their husband wish to practice it.

The literature review shows that there is large difference between the knowledge and practice of family planning and that it differs from one society to the other. The decision taken is mainly of a male dominated whereby the husband or a man takes a decision and there is less communication between the spouses regarding this matter.

But there was no study to compare and analyze the practice of family planning only among young adult who are in the most productive age of reproduction. Therefore the main aim is to study the various factors on the usage of family planning methods and the usage of different family planning methods by the targeted study population.

OBJECTIVES

To learn about the respondents’ knowledge about Family Planning method
To study the perception of married young adults towards Family Planning
To know about the utilization of family planning services among married young adults.
To learn about the misconception that the respondent has about family planning.
To know about the reasons for not practicing family planning among the respondents.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

With Meghalaya having recorded one of the highest decadal growth and fertility rates in the country as per the latest census, the state government has emphasized on the urgent need to reduce the population in the state to ensure sustainable economic growth and development.”The government is making efforts to stabilize the population of the country at a level consistent with the national economy,” said the Health Minister of the Government of Meghalaya. As per details from Census 2011, Meghalaya has a population of 29.67 Lakhs, an increase from figure of 23.19 Lakhs in 2001 census. Total population of Meghalaya as per 2011 census is 2,966,889 of which male and female are 1,491,832 and 1,475,057 respectively. In 2001, total population was 2,318,822 in which males were 1,176,087 while females were 1,142,735.The total population growth in this decade was 27.95 percent while in previous decade it was 29.94 percent. The population of Meghalaya forms 0.25 percent of India in 2011. In 2001, the figure was 0.23 percent. In spite of the low density and population of Meghalaya, it is worth noticing that, the state has a rapid population growth rate, and has the third fastest growing population in India, according to the Meghalaya Census 2011.

Therefore, based on this idea, the purpose of this study is to know about the life situation of married young adults their knowledge, attitude and practice also their access and utilization of various methods of family planning. Furthermore, such type of research has never been conducted before in this particular area. Therefore, it is thought to be useful to conduct this study in this area where like everywhere else, over population seemed to be a major problem that affect both the mother and the infant.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research design

The design to be adopted in this particular research is a mixture of explanatory, descriptive and research as the researcher will describe as accurately as possible the characteristics of married young adults and perception towards family planning and also to explain the causes and effect relationship between various factors that leads to the non utilization of family planning.

Population of the study

Any married young couples who come to Ganesh Das Hospital for maternal care at the period of data collection.

Sampling Design

The research will be carried out through a purposive random sampling as the sample will be selected based on judgement as to who can provide the best information to achieve the objective of the study.

Tools for data collection

Data collection will be conducted through structured interview method. This method will provide uniform information, which assures the comparability of data. Structured interviewing requires fewer interviewing skills than does unstructured interviewing

Nature of tools

Structured interview will be the tools used for data collection to ensure that all respondents are asked exactly the same set of questions in the same sequence and it is better for quantitative analysis.

Sources of data

Sources of data will be primary as well as secondary data as the researcher can obtain data through interview and also use census data to obtain information on the utilization of family planning in Meghalaya.

Data analysis

Data will be analyzed using Statistical test as per the requirement.This process will include editing, coding, classification and tabulation of collected data.

LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Some sample may not respond to the researcher due to some ethical issues.
Over population due to high birth rate may not likely seen as a problem to everyone.
Since family planning is a wide concept, the researcher may not be able to cover all its respective area.

WORK PLAN

Sl No	Activity	Scheduled	Remark
1	Choosing of topic	April	Completed
2	Review of literature	August 2013	Completed
3	Synopsis	November 2013
4	Data Collection	December2013-January 2014
5	Analysis, interpretation and report writing	February-March 2014
6	Submission and defense	March 2014

LIKELY OUTCOME

This study is expected to describe the family planning knowledge, to identify the attitude towards family planning, highlight the factors and causes that hinder married young adult to practice family planning and to know about the rate of family planning utilization. Moreover, the study will also tell the strategies adopted by the married young adult in handling family size. Finally, the study would serve as a reference for the other like-minded individuals who would like to conduct a similar study in the future or who are interested in this field.