Women's contraceptive use and need worldwide 2019

Of the 1.9 billion women of reproductive age worldwide, 790 million have no need for family planning and therefore do not use contraceptives. Among the 1.1 billion women who have a need for family planning, 842 million use modern contraceptive methods and 80 million use traditional methods of contraception. There remains 190 million women with an unmet need for family planning. These are women who want to avoid pregnancy but do not use any contraceptive method. This statistic shows the number of women of reproductive age worldwide using modern or traditional contraceptive methods or with an unmet need for contraceptives in 2019.

Number of women of reproductive age worldwide using modern or traditional contraceptive methods or with an unmet need for contraceptives in 2019* (in millions)

Characteristic	Number of women in millions
Modern methods	842
Traditional methods	80
Unmet Need**	190
No need for contraceptives	790

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Release date

December 2019

More information

Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

2019

Age group

15-49 years

Supplementary notes

Based on data from 1,247 surveys for 195 countries or areas of the world and additional tabulations obtained from microdata and survey reports.

* Reproductive age = 15-49 years

** Women who want to avoid pregnancy and do not use any contraceptive method are considered to have an unmet need for family planning, which is defined as the number of women that want to stop or delay childbearing but are not using any method of contraception to prevent pregnancy, including also pregnant women whose pregnancies were unwanted or mistimed at the time of conception, and postpartum amenorrhoeic women who are not using family planning and whose last birth was unwanted or mistimed.

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