Cultural complications in fertility interviewing

A description is presented of interviewing and other field work problems in a fertility and KAP survey among village women in East Pakistan. The female population studied had a very low literacy rate and no previous contact with social research. In the survey described, village women were interviewed through the use of many standard questions concerning fertility and family planning. Inappropriate responses to these items were produced by the women. Many women misunderstood the questions or did not have the requisite information. This necessitated special explanations to respondents. One standard survey procedure which had to be modified in the field work was the maintenance of privacy in the interview situation. Prior to the survey (which was done in conjunction with a pilot family planning project), an attempt was made to develop a corps of indigenous village data-collectors.