Effects of age, years of schooling, income, and cash incentive on postponement of first pregnancy among newly married couples in Satara district of Maharashtra (India)

Context: Postponement of first pregnancy is known to be associated with a variety of interdependent factors such as age, education, income, occupation, religion, caste, and cash incentives. This paper examines the relationship and effects of some of these factors on postponement of first pregnancy among newly married couples in Satara district. Objective: To study the interdependency of age, years of schooling, income, and cash incentive on postponement of first pregnancy among newly married couples. Materials and Methods: This study employed quasi-experimental study design. Duly trained multipurpose workers interviewed husbands and auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) interviewed the wives; preferably in separate rooms using pretested semi-open proforma. Statistical analysis was done using STATA^® version 12 statistical software. Results: Out of 1,355 participants; 704 couples successfully postponed first pregnancy by 2 years, but 651 couples could not do so. Participants were signifi cantly successful in postponing pregnancy by 569.13 vs. 353.89 days for controls. Age and education of female participants were signifi cantly associated with postponement of first pregnancy; while age, education, and income of male participants were not associated with postponement. Conclusions: Higher age, more education, and higher income appear to be associated with acceptance of postponement of pregnancy and appear to be acting synergistically in both male and female participants as compared to nonparticipants.