Access to contraception is critical for limiting fertility. Yet, in South and Southeast Asia, access to these resources is often limited by spatial inequalities between ru- ral and urban areas. Access to a motorcycle may empower women living in rural areas to attenuate these spatial inequalities, increase their educational attainment and participation in labor markets, and thereby facilitate a shift in fertility pref- erences. Concomitantly, motorcycle access may increase access to contraception for geographically isolated women who desire to limit fertility. We employ logistic re- gression models to examine associations with contraception use and unmet need for contraception for women living in rural vs. urban areas and for women with vs. without access to a motorcycle. Roughly 40 percent of women reported cur- rent use of contraception while another 21 percent indicated an unmet need for contraception. After adjusting for other variables, women with a motorcycle were more likely to report current contraception use (AOR = 1.55, 95% CI [1.50, 1.61]), modern contraception use (AOR = 1.60, 95% CI [1.54, 1.66]), and traditional con- traception use (AOR = 1.49, 95% CI [1.41, 1.58]) compared to women who did not own a motorcycle. Women with a motorcycle were less likely to report an unmet need for contraception (AOR = 0.65, 95% CI [0.62, 0.68]) after adjusting for other variables. Our results are consistent with the premise that motorcycles facilitate contraception use among women living in resource-limited countries in South and Southeast Asia and thereby contribute to decreases in fertility. These relationships are contextualized by whether a woman lives in an urban or rural setting, and the number of children already present in their household; they are robust to control- ling for household-level wealth and other factors that may mediate associations with contraception use.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

This study did not receive any funding

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