Women’s Empowerment and Choice of Family Planning Methods

The study examines the associations between women's empowerment and contraceptive use in selected African countries. The research aims to add to the evidence base of the associations between women's empowerment and the use of contraceptives. The study focuses on five countries: Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia, Ghana, and Uganda. Data come from the latest round of Demographic and Health Surveys conducted within the last five years. Women's empowerment is measured along six dimensions: household economy, socio-cultural activities, health seeking behavior, fertility preferences, sexual activity negotiation, and attitudes towards domestic violence. The study employs bivariate and multivariate multinomial regressions to analyze the associations between women's empowerment and contraceptive use. The findings suggest a strong association between the overall score of women's empowerment and contraceptive use in all countries. When women's and community's characteristics are controlled for, several dimensions of women's empowerment emerge as important to female method use, or couple method use, or both. These dimensions include household economic decision making, fertility preferences, and sexual activity negotiation. In Namibia, attitudes towards domestic violence are also important to the use of couple methods of contraception. The findings suggest different targeting strategies to improve women's use of contraception, as well as men's awareness and involvement in family planning via women's empowerment. The study highlights the importance of measuring women's empowerment in a multidimensional way, taking into account various levels and dimensions. The framework proposed by Maholtra, Schuler, and Boender (2002) is used to measure women's empowerment in five different arenas: household economy, socio-cultural activities, legal activities, politics, and psychology. The study also reviews the existing literature on the relationships between women's empowerment and contraceptive use. Blanc (2001) proposed a framework depicting the relationships between power within sexual relationships and sexual and reproductive health outcomes. Findings consistent with the framework have been reported in other studies examining contraceptive and condom use. The study's findings have implications for policy makers and program designers. A composite, single empowerment measure may not be sufficient to measure empowerment, and may mask differential effects of these dimensions on outcomes. The study suggests that different targeting strategies may be needed to improve women's use of contraception, as well as men's awareness and involvement in family planning via women's empowerment. The study's results are relevant to the broader context of women's empowerment and reproductive health outcomes. The findings suggest that women's empowerment is a critical factor in improving access to reproductive health services, including family planning. The study's results have implications for the design and implementation of programs aimed at improving women's empowerment and reproductive health outcomes in selected African countries.