Impact of Oportunidades on Contraceptive Methods Use In Adolescent and Young Adult Women Living In Rural Areas, 1997-2000

Oportunidades is a social program run by the Mexican government that seeks to improve education, health, nutrition, and living conditions of those living in extreme poverty. People supported by the program attend monthly health talks, which include information on contraceptive methods. Reduction in fertility, especially among youths, is deemed crucial to accomplish the program’s goals. We analyze information on contraceptive method use among young women from the Oportunidades evaluation surveys conducted in the years 1997 to 2000. We present intention to treat effect estimates, and other estimates obtained by several statistical procedures performed to evaluate the impact of the program on contraceptive methods use by young women. To accomplish this, we took advantage of the experimental design setting that was implemented to evaluate the program in rural areas. We found that among women 20- to 24- years-old, the program increased the prevalence of contraceptive methods use by 5 to 10 percentage points after two years of exposure to the program. The impact appears to have occurred mostly to those with the lowest socio-economic level.