This study emphasizes the impact of family planning program components on contraceptive prevalence in less industrialized countries. Building on Lapham and Mauldin's "Program Effort and Fertility Decline" framework and policy evaluation's theory, the author developed two models to examine the impact of family planning programs on contraceptive prevalence and fertility under the constraints of socioeconomic development and demand for family planning. The study employed path analysis and multiple regression on data from the 1982 program effort study in 94 less developed countries (LDCs) by Lapham and Mauldin and 98 LDCs of the 1989 program effort study by Mauldin and Ross. The results of data analyses for all data sets are consistent for the most part. Major findings are as follows: (1) A combination of program effort and socioeconomic development best explains the variation of contraceptive prevalence. (2) Among socioeconomic variables, female literacy exerts the strongest direct and indirect influences to increase contraceptive prevalence and indirect influence to decrease total fertility rate. (3) Christianity performs a significant role in reducing contraceptive prevalence. (4) Among program effort components, availability and accessibility for fertility-control supplies and services have the most influence on contraceptive prevalence. (5) When controlling for demand for family planning, female literacy and Christianity have expected and significant relationships with contraceptive prevalence. Availability and accessibility to fertility-control supplies and services exerts a positive and statistically significant impact on contraceptive prevalence. Demand for family planning has a positive and statistically significant effect on program variables, availability, and contraceptive prevalence. (6) There is a strong inverse relationship between contraceptive use and fertility. Demand for family planning, program effort, and socioeconomic development influence fertility through contraceptive prevalence. The findings of this study suggest that governments in LDCs should give priorities to increasing female education and availability of contraception to effectively reduce fertility.

The issue of women's reproductive rights has become an international concern in the recent decade. Ongoing debates on women's reproductive rights in world conferences and conventions have heightened the need for empirical research and theoretical explanations of women's reproductive rights Nevertheless, very few sociological studies have treated women's reproductive rights as a dependent variable. This study examines the effects of family planning programs and the processes of modernization on women's reproductive rights. Several facets of modernization; processes of socioeconomic development, secularization, women's education, and levels of gender equality are considered. The study involves 101 countries identified by the World Bank (1994) as developing countries. It is argued, on the one hand, that variations in women's reproductive rights in developing nations may be explained by the social changes brought about by modernization processes. On other hand, the universality of the anti-natalistic population policies in developing countries in the late 20th century provides a strong state control over fertility rate, which may contribute to the attainment of women's reproductive rights. Using linear structural equation analysis, the study finds that fertility decline due to family planning programs leads to the achievement of women's reproductive rights. The empirical findings support the hypothesis that socioeconomic development has a positive effect on women's education, and that there is no statistically significant relationship between modernization and gender equality. The results of the study, meanwhile, indicate that, in developing societies, women's education is negatively related to women's reproductive rights. The study suggests: first, family planning programs as a social policy in developing countries influence fertility decline, and enhance women's reproductive rights; second, gender equality in society is an important factor that increases the level of reproductive rights for women in developing countries; and finally, the finding that women's education reduces the attainment of reproductive rights may imply the need to develop valid scales for measuring reproductive rights. The findings of this study contribute toward the development of a structural model of reproductive rights.