The Effect of Socioeconomic and Demographic Factors on Contraceptive Use and Induced Abortion in Turkey

The aim of the study was to estimate the parameters of the heteroscedastic bivariate Probit model established for the induced abortion and the contraceptive use by using socioeconomic and demographic factors and their effects by eliminating the observed heteroscedasticity. Using a heteroscedastic bivariate Probit model and Turkish Demographic and Health Survey (1998) data on married women aged 15 through 49 years, we estimated the probabilities of their having an induced abortion, if induced abortion have, of their using contraceptive methods. The results of the research show that induced abortion is perceived and used as a contraceptive method among the women in Turkey. This shows that it is the correct way to examine those two variables, induced abortion and contraceptive use, together.