Assessment of Women's Reproductive Empowerment in Rural and Urban Areas: A Comparitive Study

Abstract

Background: Empowering women is a key factor for better social and economic development of different countries because women empowerment enables much more working force and improves performance of organizations. Aim: This study aimed to assess women's reproductive empowerment in rural and urban areas. Design: A cross sectional descriptive research design was used. Setting: This study was carried out at Maternal and Child Health Care Center at Talkha and Salamoon health facility, Delta, Egypt. Study subjects: A non-probability purposive sample of 334 women who were fulfilling the inclusion criteria. Tools A structured interview schedule to cover the data related to general characteristics and women’s reproductive empowerment questionnaire to assess women’s reproductive empowerment. Results: There were highly statistical significant differences regarding cultural, individual family, social and family planning domain scores among rural and urban women with more empowerment in urban women (p < 0.001). Also, the highest of women’s reproductive empowerment among urban and rural residents were found in cultural domain with Mean ±SD 20.3 ±4.5 and 18.1 ±5.8 respectively and the lowest scores among rural and urban women were found in family planning domain with Mean ±SD 17.7 ±3.1 and 14.9 ±4.7 respectively. Else, women’s reproductive empowerment among the studied group was significantly associated with their occupation, educational level and their husband's educational level (p >0.05). Conclusion: The current study question was answered where urban women were more empowered regarding cultural, individual family, social and family planning domains than rural women. Women occupation, educational level and husband's educational level had an effective role in reproductive empowerment. Recommendations: The current study recommended more involvement of woman in membership in rural institutions and access to social networks, also increase awareness of rural woman about their right, legal empowerment and decision-making.