Perception towards Family Planning and its Implication to Environmental Sustainability: The Case of two Selected Kebeles in Aroresa Woreda in Sidama Zone, Ethiopia

This study was conducted aiming at to assess perception of couples towards family planning and its relevance to environmental sustainability and to identify factors hindering family planning practice. Sample respondents for study comprises 90 couples in rural and 28 in urban. Data was collected by using random systematic and simple random sampling methods. The instruments used for data collection were interview and focus group discussion. The research found that there is promising level of awareness on family planning and main source of information were health extension agents. Reported reasons in sought of large number of children were old age support, son or daughter preference, considering children as a wealth, and labor support, religious prohibition. Nearly half of respondent couples approve contraceptives with more approval of women in both settings. Most of the respondents showed positive attitude towards family planning. Furthermore, half of the rural and nearly less than half of the urban respondents approve the importance of family planning for environmental sustainability. During the study period 23.2% of urban and 18.9% of rural couples were using some method of family planning; among which 21.4 of urban and 16.7% of rural women were using modern methods, hence, awareness level and practice in family planning showed a gap in both urban and rural. In general, urban showed more favorable attitude and practice than rural couples in family planning. Despite of their lower practice in family planning, rural respondents likely showed more favorable attitudes towards relevance of family planning for environmental sustainability.