In 1978, the Bangladesh family planning program launched a national program of outreach services that continues to the present. Young married women were hired and trained to visit women in their homes, offer contraceptive services, provide information, and support sustained use over time.

With the introduction of female condoms that can be used exclusively by women at the time of intercourse, the conventional latex condom, which is worn over the penis, can now be termed as the male condom.

Sterilization is one of the most popular and widely used methods of contraception in the world today. The family welfare program of the Government of India has relied heavily on sterilization as a birth control method.

The Copper-IUD -- Cu-T 200 -- is a reliable, safer simple and cost effective method of contraception.

In countries where emergency contraception is offered, its availability and use vary widely, according to such factors as regulations and policies regarding the method, providers' and women's understanding of and attitudes toward it, and cost.

This study tests the hypothesis that, in Nepal, measures of ideal family size mask an underlying preference for sons, making some people willing to have families larger than their ideal. Existing evidence suggests that men are likely to have stronger preferences for sons than are women.

Inter-spouse communication, though not a new dimension of fertility and family planning research, has remained much less explored in the Indian context than any other correlate of contraceptive use and current fertility.

Population policy is, and has always been, contentious. For the last two years, the debate on population related issues-both nationally and internationally-has been difficult and sometimes acrimonious.

While it has become common to infer the social status of women from their demographic characteristics, it is not easy to read demographic progress in terms of declines in mortality, and fertility to make unambiguous judgments about trends in women's social standing.