Benefits and cost-saving effects of family planning

The basis for PSN's overall work and programmes is PSN's mission, and in particular to increase support for and investment in voluntary family planning and reproductive health services that respect and protect rights. Below we present the rationale for this approach, using key statistics to show the wide-ranging benefits of investment in family planning, which offers a highly cost-effective way of achieving progress towards many development priorities.

1. The unmet need for family planning

Worldwide there is a vast unmet need for modern contraceptives. While having the ability to plan and space pregnancy is a recognised human right:

  • There are an estimated 215 million women in developing countries who want to avoid pregnancy but are not using an effective form of contraception.1
  • Worldwide only 56.1% of women aged 15-49 who are married or in a union are using modern contraception, and this figure falls to only 25.0% in the least developed countries.2

Unmet need for modern contraceptives is highest in the poorest regions and among the poorest social groups, such Sub-Saharan Africa and South Central Asia and among young women, less educated women, and women in rural areas.1

This significant unmet undermines women's rights and contributes significantly to unsustainable population growth in many areas of the global South, undermining poverty alleviation and heightening other pressing development issues.

2. Links between high rates of population growth and lack of access to family planning

The rapid growth of the world's population that has taken place over recent decades is unprecedented and is receiving increasing recognition by the international development agenda:3

  • In 1950 the global population was 2 billion and in October 2011 it is set to reach 7 billion.
  • According to the latest UN population projections, the world's population is now expected to exceed nine billion by 2050, and is likely to reach over 10 billion by the end of this century.

The majority of world population increase is projected to take place in the poorest countries in the global South, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia:3

  • Between 2011 and 2100 the population of high fertility countries (58 in total) is projected to more than triple, from 1.2 billion to 4.2 billion.
  • Thirty-nine of these high fertility countries are in Africa, 9 are in Asia, 4 in Latin America and 6 in Oceania.
  • The population of Africa is expected to more than triple by the end of the century, from today's one billion to 3.6 billion.

Countries with high fertility and population growth rates tend to have high unmet need for modern contraception, contributing significantly to population growth:
  • Women with an unmet need for effective contraception account for 82% of all unintended pregnancies in developing countries.1
  • 75 million unintended pregnancies occur every year in developing countries.1
  • Over one in five of all births worldwide result from unintended pregnancies.4

3. Health benefits of fulfilling the need for family planning

Fulfilling the unmet need for family planning in developing countries while simultaneously investing in maternal and newborn care would each year:1

  • Save the lives of 251,000 women (including 38,000 deaths resulting from unsafe abortion)
  • Save the lives of 1.7 million newborns
  • Avert two-thirds of all maternal deaths (from 356,000 to 105,000)
  • Avert half of all newborn deaths (from 3.2 million to 1.5 million)
  • Avert two-thirds of unintended pregnancies (from 75 million to 22 million)
  • Avert four-fifths of deaths from unsafe abortions (from 46,000 to 8,000).

4. Wider benefits of investment in family planning and cost-saving effects

Voluntary family planning programmes are valid in their own right given the benefits for women's sexual and reproductive health and rights. Yet access to family planning has many wide-ranging benefits and cost-saving effects:

  • It enables women to exercise choice and control over their fertility, while facilitating reductions in fertility levels and population growth.5
  • Significant improvements in sexual and reproductive health, including reduced maternal and child mortality and morbidity.1
  • Ensuring women have the ability to plan and space their pregnancies is critical for advancing gender equality, and increases women's opportunities for education, employment and full participation in society.
  • Countries with rapid population growth rates tend to have the highest levels of poverty. Rapid population growth can place great strain on public services and dramatically reduces the capacity of governments to meet citizen's basic needs.5
  • Reducing fertility rates can permit greater investment in education, health and skills for employment, contributing to development and poverty alleviation.5
  • Population growth and density is putting extreme pressure on the environment and resources such as land and water in many developing countries, and heightening vulnerability to climate change.5,6
  • Addressing current unmet need for modern contraception would slow population growth and reduce global average fertility to 1.65 children per woman (below replacement level) by 2050, and achieve between 8 and 15 per cent of the reduction in global carbon emissions necessary to avoid dangerous global warming of more than 2°C by 2050.7
  • High rates of population growth can contribute to the potential for civil conflict and political instability, where there is pressure on limited resources, such as land or water, mass migration and high youth employment.8

Reducing population growth by preventing unplanned pregnancies reduces the costs of meeting the Millennium Development Goals and supports progress towards other key development priorities. The priorities that investments in family planning offer the potential to advance include: maternal and newborn health, gender equality, elimination of poverty and hunger, education, HIV/AIDS, environmental sustainability, climate change and political instability.

For every dollar spent in family planning, it is estimated that between 2 and 6 U.S. dollars can be saved in interventions aimed at achieving other development goals.9

5. Inadequacy of current funding for family planning

Despite the far-reaching impacts and cost-saving effects of family planning, there is insufficient international investment to meet the need worldwide for voluntary family planning programmes, which PSN believes should be delivered as part of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health programmes that protect and respect rights:

  • Since the mid-to-late 1990s, donor assistance dedicated specifically to family planning has decreased dramatically in absolute terms, from $653 million in absolute U.S. dollar amounts in 1997 to $394 in 2006.1

Simultaneously fulfilling the unmet need for both family planning and maternal and newborn services in developing countries (which would save more lives and cost less than investing in maternal and newborn services alone) would require an estimated doubling of the current global investments:

  • Increasing investments in family planning and pregnancy-related care from $11.8 billion to $24.6 billion annually (in 2008 U.S. dollars): an additional $12.8 billion investment annually, above current levels.1


References and further information

  1. Guttmacher Institute (2010) Facts on Investing in Family Planning and Maternal and Newborn Health. New York: Guttmacher Institute and United Nations Population Fund.
  2. UN Population Division (2011) World Contraceptive Use 2011 (Wallchart). 
  3. UN Population Division (2011) World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision. New York: UN.
  4. Engelman (2011) ‘An End to Population Growth: Why Family Planning Is Key to a Sustainable Future’ in Solutions, Volume 2, 3, 13 April 2011. 
  5. PSN (2010) Population Dynamics and Poverty Reduction: A PSN Briefing Paper. London: PSN.
  6. PSN (2010) Population Dynamics and Climate Change: A PSN Briefing Paper.  
  7. The Aspen Institute (2010) What’s Good for Women in Good for the Planet , citing O’Neill et al (2010) and Futures Group (2010).
  8. PSN (forthcoming, 2011) Population Dynamics and Fragile States: A PSN Briefing Paper. London: PSN.
  9. Moreland, S. & Talbird, S (2006). Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: The contribution of fulfilling the unmet need for family planning. Washington D. C: USAID.

A more detailed Fact Sheet Investment in Voluntary Family Planning Programmes: Benefits and cost-saving effects is available to download in Resources, along with additional information and resources about the multiple benefits of investing in family planning and the significance of population dynamics for a range of development priorities.