Additional Survey Data
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HIV/AIDS Survey Supplement

JHU/CCP

Table of Contents

• Summary
• Credits

1. Focus on Men
2. Contraceptive Use
3. Contraceptive Awareness and Approval
4. Fertility Preferences
5. Young Men

• Figures
• Tables
• Side-bars
• Bibliography

• The gender gap in reporting condom use
• Why many men do not intend to use family planning
• Radio and TV messages reach more men than women
• Most men want more children than women do
• Sexually active young unmarried men at risk for HIV/AIDS

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Men’s Surveys: New Findings

Since 1990, 46 countries, most in sub-Saharan Africa, have taken nationally representative surveys of men’s family planning attitudes and behavior. In nearly all surveyed countries, most men know and approve of contraception. Most married men say that they want to have more children, however, and on average, they want more children than married women do.

A growing percentage of men are using contraceptive methods, particularly condoms, surveys show. Still, in many surveyed countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, a minority of all men report currently using contraception.

Of the 46 countries that have surveyed men about family planning since 1990, 25 are in sub-Saharan Africa, 11 in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the remaining 10 in other regions. Twenty countries, most in sub-Saharan Africa, have had more than one national survey since 1990. Most surveys include both married and unmarried men. These surveys are part of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Reproductive Health Surveys (RHS) programs.

Surveys of men cover many of the same topics that surveys of women cover, allowing comparisons between men and women in the surveyed countries. The findings of women’s surveys are presented in a companion issue of Population Reports, New Survey Findings: The Reproductive Revolution Continues, Series M, Number 17, Spring 2003.

Surveys of men, in contrast to the surveys of women, cannot be considered representative of the developing world as a whole, because fewer have been conducted and they focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Still, they cover most sub-Saharan countries and offer new insights into men’s use of family planning and their reproductive attitudes and behavior. Key findings:

Sexually active unmarried men use contraception more than married men. Sexually active unmarried men are more likely than married men to use contraception, primarily condoms. In only 16 surveyed countries do a majority of married men report that they or their wives use contraception. Nonetheless, in 41 countries married men report more condom use than married women do. This difference suggests that many men may use condoms extramaritally.

Men are more likely than women to know of family planning but less likely to approve. IIn 23 of 25 sub-Saharan countries, men are more likely than women to know of at least one contraceptive method, most often the condom. In other surveyed countries, men and women have similar levels of contraceptive awareness. In most surveyed countries, however, men are less likely than women to approve of family planning.

Nonetheless, in all but one country, the percentage of married men who say they approve of family planning is greater than the percentage of married women who think that their husbands approve. A woman who knows her husband’s attitudes about family planning is more likely to use contraception than a woman who does not know.

Men often want more children than women want. In 21 of 41 countries with survey data on desired family size, married men, on average, report that they want at least 0.5 more children than married women want. In nine sub-Saharan countries married men want an average of at least two children more.

Polygyny probably accounts for some of these differences between married men and women in sub-Saharan Africa. Even among monogamous couples, however, married men want more children than married women want. Such findings help explain why many married women report that they have more children than they would have preferred.

Young unmarried men face years of potential HIV risk. In most of 33 countries with survey data, half of young men report that they began sex before age 18, but in most countries the median age at first marriage is between 23 and 30. This gap suggests that many young unmarried men face at least five years of potential risk for STIs, including HIV/AIDS. Despite the risk, in 15 of 32 countries with data, most sexually active unmarried adolescent men do not use condoms or any other contraceptive method.

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