Two Decades of Unmet Need for Family Planning among Currently Married Women in Ghana and Policy Implications: A mini review of GDHS 1993 – 2014

Abstract

Recent data on levels of family planning in Ghana’s Demographic and Health Surveys present a high level of unmet need although family planning programmes were introduced around the early 1960s. This review examines unmet need for the past two decades among married women using the GDHS reports.  We employed Griffiths (2002) approach to examine GDHS reports published between 1993 to 2014 and complimented with relevant published articles within this period using relevant search engines. We found that, nearly two in five married women used a form of contraceptive and one in three married women still reported unmet need. Younger and older mothers over the entire two decades consistently reported unmet need for spacing and limiting respectively. Rural mothers as well as those from poorest households were more likely to report unmet need for family planning while mothers who attained at least secondary education were less likely to report unmet need.

Keywords: Mini review, unmet need, non-contraceptive use, spacers, limiters, Ghana.