PIP: Male involvement in family planning programs has been recognized as an important strategy towards shared responsibility between men and women in reproductive decisions as well as in the prevention of STDs and AIDS. Bolstering male involvement is among the objectives of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Program of Action. One of the achievements of Cairo was the recognition of the need to increase men's responsibility for their sexuality and child rearing roles. The contraceptive prevalence rate and the difference in use of male and female contraceptive methods in selected Asian and Pacific countries are presented. Data on Pacific Islands was not available by contraceptive methods used except for Fiji (1974). There is above 70% contraceptive use in Hong Kong, Republic of Korea, Australia, Taiwan, Singapore, and China, with low use in Pakistan and Nepal. The data show that the type of contraceptive used is very much gender biased, indicating that the burden of contraceptive use is on women. The male methods of vasectomy, condom, and withdrawal are used by fewer couples than the female methods of female sterilization, pills, injectables, IUDs, and vaginal barriers for most countries except Japan. In Japan 44% of couples rely on male methods, mainly condoms; however, the use of pills constitutes less than 1%. Hong Kong and Singapore also have higher use of condoms than other countries (about 1/4 of married couples). Male sterilization is relatively lower than female sterilization for all countries. The highest use is in Korea, with 11% of the couples having undergone male sterilization, however, female sterilization is also the highest for Korea with 37% of the couples using this method. No matter what the level of the socioeconomic development of the country, the responsibility of regulating reproduction seems to lie with the women.