Identifying the factors influencing institutional and non-institutional delivery practices in slums of Shillong City.

An attempt has been made in this paper to determine the factors which resulted in preference for Institutional and Non-Institutional deliveries in slum areas of Shillong city. Cross-sectional study was conducted in slums of Shillong City. From a total of 17605 slum dwellers distributed in different proportions in sixteen wards in Shillong city a representative sample of 1300 slum households was selected from thirty one localities using an appropriate statistical formula. From these 1300 households 1417 women were identified as married women eligible for the study. Information of 1417 married women was analyzed to interpret the place of delivery of slum women in relation to respondent’s religion education occupation family income age at marriage etc. SAS/STAT software was used to analyze the data. The method is based on the well-known statistical technique of factor analysis by which we essentially find out the principal component of the group consisting of various indicators in descending order of their importance. Results from factor analysis show that the total number of ever born children demand for male child economic status and customs and religious practices influence both institutional and non-institutional deliveries.