Family Planning Practice and Women'S Fertility Decision-Making Power

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of family planning practice on fertility decision-making power in South Korea. The log-linear analysis of the 1981 survey data by the Institute of Population and Health Services Research, Yonsei University. Seoul, Korea, shows that those urban and rural women who practice family planning or have experienced abortion exercise greater influence on couple's fertility decision-making than those who do not practice family planning or have had no abortion experience. In addition, there is an interactive effect of abortion experience and contraceptive use on fertility decision-making among urban women. This finding is significant because regardless how birth control becomes available in a society, birth control use enhances women's decision power concerning fertility.