ANALYSIS OF CONTRACEPTIVE DISCONTINUATION IN 6 DEVELOPMENT COUNTRIES FROM DURATIONS OF USE AT SURVEY

We conduct a cross-national study of contraceptive discontinuation amo ng currently married nonsterilized contracepting women in Bolivia, Egy pt, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Zimbabwe using the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). Since the DHS contains no true completed epochs of contraceptive use, the distribution of use times at survey is used to approximate the distribution of the completed epochs using the ren ewal theorem, Two techniques based on this approximation are used, The first technique uses local linear regression smoothing of a histogram estimate of the use time at survey pdf which is converted into an est imate of the discontinuation probability function, The second techniqu e poses a proportional hazards Weibull distribution for the discontinu ation probability function which is then converted into a model for th e use times at survey. This second technique is used to model the obse rved variations in use across countries while controlling; for other s ociodemographic factors such as children ever born, age, and education , as well as a variable which encodes knowledge of the fertility cycle . Pill discontinuation probabilities range from 0.12 to 0.47 in the fi rst year, IUD discontinuation probabilities range from 0.18 to 0.53 in the first year. Discontinuation probabilities in Egypt over all metho ds are in agreement with those reported in Ali and Cleland (1995). Log ged relative risks of pill discontinuation range from -0.94 (Sri Lanka ) to 0 (Kenya), while logged relative risks of IUD discontinuation ran ge from -0.53 (Sri Lanka) to 0.41 (Zimbabwe). The ordering of risks of pill discontinuation among the six countries considered is in agreeme nt with the ordering of total fertility rates excerpted from Westoff ( 1991).