According to a study, more than 160 million women and young people still have an unmet need for contraceptives, despite significant global progress. An international team of researchers, which published its worldwide estimate based on over 1000 surveys in the specialist journal "The Lancet", found large regional differences. It has been estimated that a total of 1.2 billion women in the world need contraception. 162.9 million of them could not cover their needs in 2019.
However, the use of modern contraceptives for women and young people aged 15 to 49 has increased significantly since 1970: from 28 to 48 percent in 2019. The researchers include the pill, the spiral, condoms and voluntary sterilization.
The researchers observed the lowest availability of modern contraceptives in sub-Saharan Africa, where use was lowest at 24 percent and demand met at just 52 percent. In contrast, in Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania, two-thirds of women used them. South Sudan brings up the rear in the use of modern contraceptives with two percent - compared to Norway with 88 percent. According to a 2019 study, around 63 percent of women aged 15 to 49 in Germany used modern contraceptives.
"Although we have seen tremendous advances in the availability of contraceptives on a global scale since the 1970s, there is still a long way to go to ensure that every woman and adolescent girl can benefit from the economic and social empowerment that contraceptives offer can," said first author Annie Haakenstad of the University of Washington. According to the study, it is mainly adolescents and younger women who have been affected by the sometimes inadequate access to contraceptives. The dominant contraceptive methods in high-income countries in 2019 were the contraceptive pill and condoms. Spirals are also commonly used in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Female sterilization accounted for more than half of all contraceptive use in South Asia.
