Considerable public resources in India go to making free and subsidised contraceptives available for poor clients and for inaccessible areas. Oral Contraceptives (OCs) are available in three broad categories; free products, subsidised/social marketing products, and full priced commercial OCs; their purpose to stratify the market by socio-economic status.

Two sources of data, DHS/India and a CMS survey of OC users and intenders, were analysed to look for relationships between OC brands used and users socio-economic status. Depending on the brand used, OC users were divided into one the three product categories. These were analysed by indicators such as respondent’s socio-economic category, and residence (rural and urban).

Analysis of DHS/India data showed little relationship between socio-economic status of users and OC categories used. Going against policy expectations, free and subsidised products were used mostly by those from the upper and middle socio-economic groups. In rural areas, full price commercial brands were used more by the poorest socio-economic groups than the higher socio-economic groups. Analysis of the CMS survey data also showed very little segmentation of OC brands used by socio-economic status. Free and subsidised product users came from across all socio-economic levels, as did users of full priced commercial OCs.

Free, subsidised and commercial products are expected to appeal to different socio-economic segments due to differences in costs. There is however little correlation of cost of product to socio-economic status of users. Positioning strategies other than pricing, are needed to ensure that subsidised and free products reach poorer contraceptive users.