Recent features and factors of contraceptive use in Europe: evidence from the Generations and Gender Survey

Irina Troitskaia, Moscow State University
Alexandre Avdeev, Université de Paris I, Sorbonne

The comparison of contraceptive behaviour in France, Georgia and Russia based on the data from the first wave of the “Generations and Gender Survey” highlights differences in family planning practices in the three countries. The variations observed in contraceptive prevalence and in choice between different methods are determined both by the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents and by macro-level factors such as legislation, population policy, public health system etc. The micro-level analysis of contraceptive behaviour in three above-mentioned countries shows that the impact of the individual characteristics of the respondents on the use of contraception does not vary much from one country to another. In all three countries, the youngest and the best educated women more frequently use modern methods; marriage and living in an urban environment are also factors that increase the probability of using pill or IUD. In other words, the characteristics of the users of modern methods are fairly similar in the three countries, but the proportions of users of these methods vary considerably between France and two Eastern European countries. Therefore, causes of these quantitative might be partially explained by the macro-level factors: the state support of family planning, the specificities of health insurance, the sex education, the culture and traditions etc. The authors are aware that the comparison of three countries is not enough for making conclusions about the typology of family planning practices in Europe. Since the data of the GGS Wave 1 from eight European countries are now available for analysis, the authors plan to include Bulgaria, Germany, Netherlands and Romania into the list of countries compared that may give a clearer idea of the types of contraceptive behaviour in Europe.