| Abstrakt: |
In 1997, the world economic downturn hit the countries of Asia hard. In Indonesia, the 30-year Suharto regime ended, adding political uncertainty and civil service disruption to that country’s woes. One of the world’s most successful long term family planning and population management programs faced disaster as the cost of contraceptives increased and access to supplies and services decreased. But the disaster never happened and contraceptive prevalence actually rose during this period. What explains this resilience? Using data from large national demographic and health surveys (n=21,000) at two points in time, we test the hypotheses that contraceptive use remained stable due to entrenched social norms favoring family planning and communication around those norms—in other words, a supportive symbolic environment—reflected in factors such as interpersonal communication with one’s spouse, approval of family planning and desire for small families at the aggregate level. Second, we hypothesize that exposure to family planning messages, also at the aggregate level, strengthens the small family contraceptive adoption ethos, thus contributing to the stability of contraceptive use. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
