As of 2004, condoms accounted for 80% of birth control use in Japan, and this may explain Japans comparatively low rates of AIDS. Society and culture
The pill was approved by the FDA in the early 1960s; its use spread rapidly in the late part of that decade, generating an enormous social impact. Time magazine placed the pill on its cover in April, 1967. In the first place, it was more effective than most previous reversible methods of birth control, giving women unprecedented control over their fertility. Its use was separate from intercourse, requiring no special preparations at the time of sexual activity that might interfere with spontaneity or sensation, and the choice to take the pill was a private one. This combination of factors served to make the pill immensely popular within a few years of its introduction.Claudia Goldin, among others, argue that this new contraceptive technology was a key player in forming womens modern economic role, in that it prolonged the age at which women first married allowing them to invest in education and other forms of human capital as well as generally become more career-oriented. Soon after the birth control pill was legalized, there was a sharp increase in college attendance and graduation rates for women. From an economic point of view, the birth control pill reduced the cost of staying in school.
Music
Singer Loretta Lynn commented on how women no longer had to choose between a relationship and a career in her 1974 album with a song entitled "The Pill", which told the story of a married womans use of the drug to liberate herself from her traditional role as wife and mother. Environmental impact
A woman using COCPs excretes from her urine and feces natural estrogens, estrone (E1) and estradiol (E2), and synthetic estrogen ethinylestradiol (EE2). These hormones can pass through water treatment plants and into rivers. Other forms of contraception, such as the contraceptive patch, use the same synthetic estrogen (EE2) that is found in COCPs, and can add to the hormonal concentration in the water when flushed down the toilet. This excretion is shown to play a role in causing endocrine disruption, which affects the sexual development and reproduction of wild fish populations in segments of streams contaminated by treated sewage effluents.