At this time, 1.9 billion women on earth are of reproductive age, yet only half use contraception. What explains this difference? Clearly, the proportion of people using contraception depends on contraceptive method accessibility, but it also depends on a need to avoid pregnancy, and that varies across the world’s population.
Half of the world’s couples of reproductive age do not use contraception
In 2021, nearly half of the world’s 1.9 billion women of reproductive age (15-49)—that is 966 million women or their partners—used contraceptives. An estimated 874 million use a modern contraceptive method, 92 million use a traditional contraceptive method. Modern contraceptive use varies widely by continent, with figures of 50% in Africa to over 80% in the industrialized countries of Europe, Southern and South-East Asia, and Oceania.
The non-use of contraception by half of the world’s people of reproductive age may reflect an unmet need for contraception, or the absence of such a need (in the case of people trying to have a child, expecting a child, who know they are sterile, or who do not have sex). Absence of need is much more common than unmet need: 83% of couples not using contraception do not use it because they do not need it.
The use of modern contraception by people wishing to avoid pregnancy has continued to rise at the global scale over the last three decades, from 67% in 1990 to 74% in 2000, 76% in 2010, and 77% in 2021. Progress was strongest in sub-Saharan Africa, where it went from 24% in 1990 to 56% in 2021. However, there is still a considerable difference between the average in that part of the world and the overall global average of 77%. Three-fourths (75%) of women around and above age 30 around the world are now protected from unwanted pregnancy. The diffusion of modern contraceptive methods at the end of the last century seems to have reached an upper limit in those age brackets in the early 2000s; it has not increased much since then. However, the proportion of women still using contraception after age 40 has continued to rise in the last 20 years. It is in the 20-24 age bracket that diffusion of contraception was most intense during the period: approximately two-thirds of the world’s young women in that age bracket can now control their fertility.
The primary contraceptive method at the global scale is not the pill
The most frequently used contraceptive methods (in 2020) were, in decreasing order, female sterilization (23% of women using some form of contraception), male condoms (22%), IUD (17%), the pill (16%), injections and implants (10%), and, lastly, traditional methods (9% use of withdrawal, calendar, other traditional methods). The so-called permanent and long-acting contraception methods (sterilization, IUD, implants) are distinguished from short-acting methods (the pill, condoms, birth control injections).
The most common methods used by married or partnered women differ from those used by unmarried or non-partnered women
Eight hundred and twenty million (820 million) of the women in the world who use contraception are married or in a union. They mainly use permanent methods (48%), female sterilization (25%) and the IUD (19%).
Of the 146 unmarried or non-partnered women who use contraception, only 20% use permanent methods (most of these women used to be married or partnered). The methods most commonly used by this second category of women are male condoms (37%) and the pill (25%).
Online: April 2025
