The use of birth control methods has been the most important intermediate variable responsible for the decline in fertility in various Western countries in the later part of the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth century.
For the earlier periods, not much evidence of birth control measures is available. Two retrospective longitudinal studies conducted in England and Wales in the late 1940s and late 1960s throw some light on the extent of the practice of birth control in the United Kingdom.
The first of these studies was an enquiry conducted in 1946-47 for the Royal Commission on Population, which revealed that only 16 per cent of those couples married before 1910 had used any birth control method, while, the percentage of users among those who got married during the period 1935-1939 were 66.
The second national survey was conducted by the Population Investigation Committee in 1967-1968, which found that the percentage of married couples, who had used contraceptives some time or the other, had risen from 82.1 per cent for those couples who had married during the period 1941-1945 to 91.4 per cent for those couples who married during the period 1961-1965.
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It was found that, in 1975, nearly 70 per cent of the women in the reproductive age group in the United States were protected by some kind of contraception.
It has also been observed that, in developed countries, the birth rates are low as a result of large scale adoption of birth control and that the most effective methods of contraception are increasingly becoming popular in the English- speaking world.
In some developing countries, too, the practice of contraception is gradually taking root. In use of contraceptives and birth rates has been plotted for thirty-two countries.
It may be observed that island countries, such as Hong Kong and Singapore have made a tremendous progress in contraceptive practice and that have been reflected in their birth rates.
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Also clearly points to the negative correlation between the practice of contraception and the birth rate. Oral pills, IUD and sterilisation are the most common methods of contraception used in developing countries.
From this, it is apparent that effective use of contraceptives is the most important variable affecting the fertility of any society.