Contraception in the 21st century Lithuania: the triumph of family planning?

Vaida Tretjakova, Institute for Social Research

The birth of modern and effective contraception that became easily accessible to most of the Western women in the middle of the 20th century has changed reproductive and matrimonial behaviour in such fundamental way that this period was labeled by scientists as „the triumph of family planning“ (McLaren, 1997). Postponement of first birth, transition to very low fertility, increase of extra marital births and other processes of the second demographic transition have become since the 1990s also visible in Lithuania but up till recently there was no sufficient data to analyze whether these changes are accompanied by the changes in contraceptive behavior. The research is essentially based on the first wave Lithuanian Gender and Generation Survey (2006) but additionally analyzes data from Family and Fertility Survey (1995) which allows to observe the changes in contraceptive behavior in Lithuania in the period of 10 years.