Family Planning and Child Health Care: Effect of the Peruvian Programa de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar, 1996–2000

Abstract

Our study estimates the effects of exposure to a family planning program which promoted surgical contraception for the first time in Peru on women's use of birth control methods and their children's health. While a broad program, the Programa de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar forced many indigenous women to undergo sterilization. We compare provinces affected by the program earlier with provinces affected later, before and after the policy. Overall, the results indicate that women in treated areas were more likely to use both temporary and permanent contraceptive methods and their children were less likely to die within their first year of life, partly due to longer breastfeeding. However, we observe heterogeneity by ethnicity. In treated provinces, nonindigenous children benefited from the policy regardless of their mothers’ choice of contraceptive method, while there were few positive impacts for indigenous children whose mothers underwent sterilization. This suggests that coercive or aggressively implemented family planning programs may not confer health benefits on children.

Raising Awareness About the Risk of Irregular Migration: Quasi‐Experimental Evidence from Guinea

“…Awareness‐raising interventions are commonplace in other fields of development (i.e., health, family planning, and education; see e.g., Battaglia and Pallarés 2020; Bongaarts and Casterline 2013). The evidence presented in this study suggests that—similar to other fields—there is reason to believe that campaigns can be an effective tool in certain circumstances.…”

“…This paper investigates the effect of awareness about the risks associated with irregular migration on intentions, perceptions, and knowledge among potential irregular migrants in rural areas of Northern Guinea 1 . While information campaigns are commonplace in other fields of development (Bongaarts and Casterline 2013; Battaglia and Pallarés 2020), rigorous evidence in the field of migration is still lacking, contributing to the overall “efficacy gap” in migration policy research (Czaika and de Haas 2013).…”