Family allowance and family planning in Chile

Family allowances designed to promote maternal and child health and welfare could be self-defeating if they stimulated otherwise unwanted births, as often assumed. That assumption, with its public health and demographic implications, needs testing. An attempt to test it was made in Chile in 1960-1970 through interviews with 945 wives receiving an allowance and 690 non-recipients. Recipients practiced contraception significantly more than did non-recipients. This was not explained by wives' educational attainment or employment, the couples' earnings, or number of living children, but was associated with a 50% greater utilization of professional prenatal care by recipients during the most recent pregnancy; women with such care (regardless of allowance status) were 75% more likely than others to control their fertility. Prenatal care was probably sought more by recipients in part because an additional stipend was provided as soon as pregnancy was confirmed, usually at clinics with integrated family planning. Greater family income, attributable to the allowance, probably also contributed to the recipients' better prenatal attention and to contraceptive practice. Noteworthy, too, was the finding that with the number of living children controlled, contraceptive practice was significantly greater among couples who had never lost a child.