Knowledge, attitude and practice GAP in family planning usage: an analysis of selected cities of Uttar Pradesh

Dependent and explanatory variables

The primary variables of interest (dependent variables) are knowledge, attitude, practice of family planning methods and KAP GAP. The explanatory variables used in the study are age group of women, education level, place of residence, number of living children, religion, caste, economic status, media exposure and husband education. In the present study age of the currently married women has been classified into five groups which are (15–19), (20–24), (25–29), (30–34) and (35–49) years. Education of women has been categorized into four parts namely no education, primary education, secondary education and higher education. Place of residence has been classified into two groups (non-slum and slum). A number of living children have been classified into five groups as no children, one child, two children, three children and four above children. The religion variable has been classified into two categories as Non-Muslim and Muslim; in the Non-Muslim religion category Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist/Neo-Buddhist, Jain, and others have been used.

In this study, caste has been taken into three components, namely scheduled caste/scheduled tribe, other backward caste, and others. The description of these caste categories is given as follows The Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) are official designations given to various groups of historically disadvantaged indigenous people in India, the second one is Other Backward Caste (OBC) which is a collective term used by the Government of India to classify castes which are socially and educationally disadvantaged and the last one is Others category also known as Forward Class, denote groups of people who do not qualify for any of the positive discrimination schemes operated by the government of India. Wealth has been categories into three parts (Poor, Medium and Rich) Women who fall under the ‘poorest’ and ‘poorer’ wealth index groups are put into the category of ‘poor’ while women who are observed to be in the ‘richer’ and ‘richest’ wealth index groups are considered to be of ‘rich’ in the present study. Media exposure classified into two categories, namely no exposure and media exposure to at least one form of media (newspaper/magazine, listing radio and watching television). Husband’s education level is classified into two categories not educated and educated.