Abstract |
Complete results of the 1992 Demographic and Health for Egypt were included in text and tables on 12 main topics: household characteristics, fertility, knowledge and attitudes about family planning, current use of family planning, use of the pill and IUD, nonuse of family planning and intention to use, fertility preferences, proximate determinants of fertility, infant and child mortality, maternal and child health, infant feeding and maternal and child nutrition, and the husbands survey. Appendices provided a discussion of survey staffing, sample errors, data quality tables, and a complete copy of the questionnaires. In the summary of findings, the report stated that fertility and family planning had changed markedly since 1980. Fertility is presently 3.9 births per woman. All are aware of family planning and 66% have used some method at some time. Contraceptive usage just about doubled to 47% in 1992. Users obtain the pill mostly from pharmacies and the IUD from private doctors or government facilities. 58% of users have a method accessible within 30 minutes from their household. Physical access was not found to deter usage, not did cost deter usage. Pill and IUD users indicated a willingness to pay more. The husbands survey confirmed that husbands play an important role in family planning decision making. The male concern is for limiting family size. 3 out of 5 husbands reported that they did not want more children. 8 out of 10 approved of family planning. The marriage age is slowly rising. Women aged 25-29 had a median age at marriage of 19.9 years, which was 1.6 years higher than the median age among women aged 45-49. Fertility rates are unevenly distributed spatially; rural women in Upper Egypt have a fertility of 6.0 and rural women in Lower Egypt have a fertility of 4.1. Urban women are more likely to use family planning. Discontinuation of use is problematic, in that 3 out of 10 stop using within 12 months; this is particularly high among pill users. The average woman has 1.2 more births than desired. Infant and child mortality has also declined markedly since 1972, but not as much as in rural areas. Most mothers do not receive adequate prenatal care. |