Prevalence of birth control

Globally approximately 45% of those who are married and able to have children use contraception. As of 2007, IUDs were used by about 17% of women of child bearing age in developing countries and 9% in developed countries or more than 180 million women worldwide. Avoiding sex when fertile is used by about 3.6% of women of childbearing age, with usage as high as 20% in areas of South America. As of 2005, 12% of couples are using a male form of contraception (either condoms or a vasectomy) with rates of up to 30% in the developed world.

As of 2012, 57% of women of child bearing age wanted to avoid pregnancy (867 of 1520 million). About 222 million women however were not able to access birth control, 53 million of whom were in sub-Saharan Africa and 97 million of whom were in Asia. Many countries limit access to birth control due to the religious and political reasons.

Contraceptive use among women in Sub-Saharan Africa has risen from about 5% in 1991 to about 30% in 2006. However, due to extreme poverty, lack of access to birth control, and restrictive abortion laws, many women still resort to clandestine abortion providers for unintended pregnancy, resulting in about 3% obtaining unsafe abortions each year.South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe have successful family planning programs, but other central and southern African countries continue to encounter extreme difficulties in achieving higher contraceptive prevalence and lower fertility for a wide variety of compounding reasons.

The one-child policy of the People's Republic of China requires couples to have no more than one child. Beginning in 1979, the policy was implemented to control rapid population growth. Chinese women receive free contraception and family planning services. Greater than 70% of those of childbearing age use contraception. Since the policy was put into place in 1979, over 400 million births have been prevented. Because of various exemptions, fertility rate is about 1.7 children per woman, down from 5.9 in the 1960s. A strong preference for boys and free access to fetus sex determination and abortion has resulted in an artificially high proportion of males in both rural and urban areas.

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