Family planning in Nepal from the user's and nonuser's perspectives.

Recent data from Nepal indicate that in the urban areas reproductive attitudes are changing much more rapidly than behavior, resulting in many unwanted births. Based on transcripts from in-depth interviews conducted in 1982 by the Urban Fertility and Contraceptive Use Project, this article analyzes the "contraceptive lag" in urban Nepal by examining contraceptive decision-making among urban couples in Kathmandu. Tracing links between attitudes, knowledge, values, and specific behavioral outcomes, the analysis reveals that for the majority of the couples in the study, unwanted births occurred for reasons that might have been obviated through more effective provision of family planning services.