Understanding people’s desire to use modern contraception is critical to ensuring programs support people to achieve their reproductive needs and preferences. Since the 1970s ‘unmet need for contraception’ has been the main measure of demand for contraception, with some revisions along the way. Unmet need is defined as the number or percentage of women currently married or in a union who are fecund and desire to either terminate, limit, or postpone childbearing but who are not currently using a contraceptive method. Unmet need has been misinterpreted as a desire to use contraception when it actually measures a person’s fertility intentions and then assumes because they are not using contraception that they have a “need” or want to use it.