SummaryData from the 1982 Sri Lanka Contraceptive Prevalence Survey are used to identify women who wish to stop childbearing; they differ in socioeconomic status from their counterparts who want more children. Educated women are more likely to be motivated to cease childbearing than non-educated women; Christian or Sinhalese/Buddhist women are more willing to stop childbearing than Moor/Muslim or Tamil/Hindu women. The relationships between sex composition of existing children and women's fertility desires indicate that although moderate son preference exists it does not affect their contraceptive behaviour. Among those who want no more children, 15% are at risk of unwanted pregnancy because they do not practise contraception. Again better education and being Christian or Sinhalese/Buddhist reduced the risk of unwanted pregnancy. Women whose husbands disapproved of contraception had over four times higher risk of unwanted pregnancy than women whose husbands approved.
Response consistency was examined by linking the records of women interviewed in the 1982 Sri Lanka Contraceptive Prevalence Survey with records from the same individuals followed up 3 years later. Seventyeight percent of women reported identical year of birth in the two surveys, but only 58% were consistent for age at marriage. Data on sterilisation and number of children born were highly reliable, but wives' reports on husband's age and education were relatively weak. Multivariate analysis of the effects of socioeconomic factors on consistency in age reporting confirms that education is the most influential factor related to consistency, followed by religion and husband's occupation.
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