 Of the 64% of married or in-union women worldwide using some form of contraception, approximately one third (19% of all women) used female sterilization as their contraception, making it the most common contraceptive method globally.The percentage of women using female sterilization varies significantly between different regions of the world.Rates are highest in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, Oceania, and selected countries in Western Europe, where rates of sterilization are often greater than 40%; rates in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Eastern Europe, however, are significantly lower, sometimes less than 2%.