This chapter addresses three questions that allow an assessment of the need for contraception. Does the respondent want more children? If so, how long would she prefer to wait before the next child? If she could start afresh, how many children in all would she want? Two further issues are examined. To what extent do unwanted or mistimed pregnancies occur? What effect would the prevention of such pregnancies have on the fertility rates? Bearing in mind that the underlying rationale of most family planning programs is to give couples the freedom and ability to bear the number of children they want and to achieve the spacing of births they prefer, the importance of this chapter is obvious.
Interpretation of data on fertility preferences has always been the subject of controversy. Survey questions have been criticized on the grounds that answers are misleading because: a) they reflect unformed, ephemeral views, which are held with weak intensity and little conviction; and b) they do not take into account the effect of social pressures or the attitudes of other family members, particularly the husband, who may exert a major influence on reproductive decisions. The first objection has greater force in non-contracepting societies where the idea of conscious reproductive choice may still be alien; preference data from these settings should be interpreted with caution. In societies with moderate to high levels of contraceptive use, greater interpretive weight can be attached to the findings. The second objection is correct in principle. In practice, however, its importance is doubtful; for instance, the evidence from surveys in which both husbands and wives are interviewed suggests that there is no radical difference between the views of the two sexes.
The inclusion of women who are currently pregnant complicates the measurement of views on future childbearing. For these women, the question on desire for more children is rephrased to refer to desire for another child after the one that they are expecting. To take into account the way in which the preference variable is defined for pregnant women, the results are classified by number of living children, including the current pregnancy as equivalent to a living child.