A New Social and Economic Case for Investing in Family Planning
Family planning catalyzes tremendous benefits for women, families and societies. Some of these outcomes, though, have been difficult to quantify. The Family Planning Impact Consortium (FP-Impact) produced new scientific evidence to measure one of the less tangible outcomes: the economic effects of family planning for women in low- and middle-income countries. FP-Impact’s findings make it clear that investments in family planning deliver concrete economic payoffs.
Taking a multinational, multidisciplinary approach, FP-Impact developed a suite of flexible statistical models that account for the diversity and complexity of women’s lives. Using these models, researchers found that use of family planning increases the likelihood that a woman has a paying job and control over the use of her earnings.
The evidence generated through this collaboration will help expand the framing of the value of investing in family planning from one focused primarily on health (e.g., reducing maternal morbidity and mortality) to a rationale that includes women’s economic empowerment and economic development. In other words, the project’s models examine the additional value of investing in family planning not only for surviving but also for thriving over the life course.
The pathway from contraceptive use to economic benefit varies significantly across countries and cultural contexts. Researchers at Avenir Health have developed a tool that can help advocates and policymakers understand the strength of the evidence demonstrating the impact of family planning on different socioeconomic indicators.
