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Chauhan, et al.

et al., 2006). It has been seen that husbands often play a critical role in decision-making regarding the timing and number
of a couple’s births (Kriel, Milford, Cordero, et al., 2019; Link, 2011). Moreover, male involvement in family planning
should be viewed in terms of not only the share of male method use but also men’s attitudes regarding method choices and
family size preferences. To understand the male involvement in the fertility or reproductive process requires a systematic
analysis of men’s attitudes toward spacing and limiting behavior.
In a developing country like India, most of the decisions regarding family formation are taken care of by men (Forste,
2002). Another reason may be due to India being a patriarchal society; women are subjugated to decide even for their own
life, lowering female autonomy, and raising preference for male child. Patriarchy, which exists in both rural and urban
parts of India, often ends with husbands dominating the power in determining the use of contraception. Nevertheless, in
India, the contraceptive method most often used by women who want to limit their family size is female sterilization (IIPS
and ICF, 2017). Although both men and women can have permanent sterilization, vasectomy is a technically easier, safer,
and more effective procedure than female sterilization. Furthermore, in India, research on men fertility stopping intention
(do not want another child) using the national representative dataset is almost unavailable.
Hence, the present study is an attempted to bridge this gap using nationally representative data set; and further to
understand the determinants of fertility stopping intention (do not want another child) among currently married men of
India. For that, the focus of this paper is twofold. First, the paper investigates the factors associated with fertility stopping
intention among currently married men who had already at least one child. Second, the paper examines factors associated
with use of family planning methods among sexually active men in India who have already at least one child and do not
want another child (Mason and Smith, 2000). Below we describe the data and methods used for the present research,
followed by the results, interpretations of major findings and their implications.
2. Data and Methods

2.1. Data sources
The current study used data from the fourth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) conducted during
2015-2016 by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) Mumbai under the stewardship of the Ministry
of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India, covering the 29 states and seven union territories.
NFHS is a nationally representative population based survey which collects information on various issues, including
but not limited to male and female fertility behavior, family planning use behavior, nutritional status of male, female
and children, domestic violence, reproductive health services utilization, and information on communicable and non-
communicable diseases. The survey followed a stratified two-stage random sample design using the sampling frame of
the 2011 Population Census. The census enumeration block in urban areas and villages in rural areas served as primary
sampling unit for this. The response rate of the Survey was 98%, 97%, and 92% for household, ever married women, and
ever married men, respectively. Overall, there were 122,051 eligible men aged 15-54 years in households selected. The
interviews were completed with 112,122 men, for a response rate of 92%. The detailed methodology of the survey is given
elsewhere (IIPS and ICF, 2017).
The study is based on currently married men to investigate their intention for true fertility limit and contraceptive use
behaviors. To align with the study aims, out of total married men (70,215 cases), we excluded those men who did not have
any living child (8799 cases) at the time of survey. Furthermore, we excluded those cases which replied as “undecided,”
“he or his partner were sterilized,” and “he or his partner declared infecund” (6,556 cases) for fertility preference. In
addition, men below the age of 20 years and above 49 years (6706 cases) were also excluded from the study. Thus, our
sample for fertility limiting intention analysis comprised 48,166. In analyzing the use of contraceptive methods, we
further excluded those men who had intention to have an extra child (11,248 cases), which came up with 36,918 men aged
20-49 years who had at least one living child at the time of survey. It is worth mentioning that the study has not found any
case of male sterilization after applying all the exclusion criteria. Therefore, the male sterilization category is not available
in our main outcome variables.

2.2. Dependent Variables
Fertility intention and contraception were the outcome variables of the study. Fertility intention was defined whether
married man wished to have one child or more regardless of timing. We classified it as dichotomous variable (want to one
or more vs. do not want). We focus on the category of not wanting any more child (or wishes to stop having any more
child), termed as fertility stopping or limiting intention.

International Journal of Population Studies | 2021, Volume 7, Issue 1 3