Constrains on Supply and Demand for Family Planning: Evidence from Rural Bangladesh

Abstract

An extensive literature exists on the determinants of fertility behavior in developing countries, and how these determinants may constrain demand for family planning services. Comparatively little is known, however, about how many of these same factors influence the supply of family planning services in such settings. In this paper, we outline how a series of socioeconomic, cultural, and institutional factors that have been commonly posited to constrain demand for family planning, also impede programmatic capabilities to organize and deliver family planning services in rural Bangladesh. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of these findings for achieving fertility reductions in unfavorable socioeconomic settings.