Men's Unmet Need for Family Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa: 1985-1999

Pierre Ngom, African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC)

This paper presents estimates of men's unmet need for family planning for 22 sub-Saharan African countries. Data are from the men's module of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). Men's unmet need is defined as the percentage of married men who are not using modern contraception and who do not want to have additional children. Levels of men's unmet need are compared across countries, and then contrasted with those for women. Trends in men's and women's unmet need are examined over the 1985-1999 period, for countries with more than one DHS data set. Preliminary findings suggest that African men also have substantial levels of unmet need. The author then relies on the observed trends in the unmet need of men and women to categorize the different patterns in African fertility transitions. Finally, the programmatic implications of the findings, especially in the area of spousal communication, are discussed.