FP2020 seeks to enable an additional 120 million women to use modern contraception by 2020. One key indicator used to monitor this progress is the modern contraceptive prevalence rate (mCPR). This indicator is generally calculated based on two different populations: married women of reproductive age, and all women of reproductive age.
FP2020 uses all women to reflect a rights-based approach to family planning, where all women, regardless of marital status, should have access to high quality family planning services.
Graphic from : The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015 (p.41)
While mCPR estimates for all women are now available in many countries from surveys such as the DHS, in the past, most reporting of mCPR has only been for married women.
Global reporting, including Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5.3 on Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) was based on married and in-union women. At the country level, most family planning strategies set CPR goals using married women CPR.
Therefore, by reporting all women mCPR, FP2020 is expanding the use of this indicator and bringing attention to the family planning needs of all women of reproductive age, not just married women.
Several countries have now set all women mCPR goals and others have set separate goals for unmarried, sexually active women.
For most countries, the mCPR for all women is lower than the mCPR for married women. This is shown in the graph below where all women are represented by the blue data points. Since all women mCPR measures contraceptive use among both married and unmarried women, in countries with low contraceptive use outside marriage, the mCPR for all women will be lower.
The all women mCPR will also differ based on the average age of marriage, and levels of sexual activity among unmarried women.
Currently, our modelled estimates of mCPR are for married women only (see FPET technical brief). Depending on the country, there are several approaches to converting these estimates into an all women mCPR.
If survey data are available for both married women and all women, the ratio between the two is used to convert from married to all women mCPR. However, in some countries, no all women mCPR estimates exist. In these cases, one of the following is done:
- 1. Use the ratio of married to all women mCPR from a similar country that has all women data (country matching)
- 2. Use a regional ratio of married to all women mCPR constructed from available survey data
- 3. No use of contraception by unmarried women is assumed
Work is under way to produce modelled estimates using FPET that would cover both married and unmarried women, allowing us to model an all women mCPR.