Comparative study of the determinants of contraceptive use in urban and rural areas of Ilam district

Parallel to reduction in women’s childbearing desires and ideals, demand for using contraceptive methods increase. This paper aims to study of the prevalence of contraceptive use and its determinants among currently married women aged 15-49 living in urban and rural areas of Ilam district. Data are taken from a survey conducted on a sample of over 724 households in July 2014. The sampling method is a combination of multi-stage cluster sampling, random sampling and systematic random sampling methods. Results show that contraceptive use is widespread among women in rural and urban area. 81.8 percent of women in both rural and urban area use a contraceptive method. The use of modern contraceptive methods are more common among urban women than their counterparts in rural area (75.7 percent vs 70.7 percent). Multivariate analysis show that the number of children surviving and costs of contraception (18.8 percent), and the ideal number of children, the number of children surviving, and the costs of contraception (36.7 percent) are the main determinants of women’s risk of contraceptive use in urban and rural area respectively. According to findings it is reasonable to conclude that regarding widespread use of contraceptives and decreasing women’s childbearing desires and ideals, increasing costs of access to contraceptives and sociocultural costs of contraceptive use may lead to unintended pregnancies, induced abortion and maternal health threats.