Women's Decision-making Power Research Articles

Migration as an Adaptation Strategy and its Gendered Implications: A Case Study From the Upper Indus Basin

Natural resource-dependent isolated mountain communities are highly vulnerable to climatic and environmental stresses, and migration is often the most important livelihood diversification strategy for insuring a household against shocks. In this paper, we present some key results from a study conducted in the West Karakoram region of Pakistan to assess the influence of environmental shocks on migration and the effect of remittances on the adaptive capacity of recipient households and on gender relations. Primary data were collected at community and household level through in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and quantitative questionnaires covering 210 households in 6 villages of the West Karakoram. Our findings suggest that migration is adopted as a core response to environmental pressure, both as an ex ante form of household risk mitigation against decreased and uncertain agricultural production, and as an ex post coping mechanism in the wake of environmental shocks. Gender structures migration; only men participate in circular labor migration to urban areas, while women are left behind to take care of the agricultural work and the household. Despite women's increased role in farming activities, no significant changes were noted in the decision-making power of women as a result of male outmigration. Gender positive transformative processes are more likely to be intergenerational and driven by increased access to education for girls.

Having a say matters: influence of decision-making power on contraceptive use among Nigerian women ages 35-49 years.

BackgroundResearch suggests that women of reproductive age who are involved in household decision-making are more likely than those who are not involved to be able to control their fertility. Little is known, however, about this relationship among women at the upper end of the reproductive spectrum. The aim of this study was to determine the association between household decision-making power and modern contraceptive use among Nigerian women ages 35–49 years.MethodsA descriptive, cross-sectional study involving a secondary analysis of data from the Nigerian 2008 Demographic and Health Survey was conducted among women ages 35–49 years who were considered to be in need of contraception. The outcome was modern contraceptive use while the main independent variable was a woman's household decision-making power score, constructed using principal component analysis. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to determine whether the women's household decision-making power score, categorized into tertiles, was independently associated with modern contraceptive use. Data were weighted and adjusted for the complex survey design.ResultsPrevalence of modern contraceptive use among Nigerian women deemed to be in need of contraception in this study was 18.7%. Multivariate logistic regression showed that women's decision-making power remained statistically significantly associated with modern contraceptive use, even after adjusting for age, education, religion, polygyny, parity, wealth and domicile. Women who were in the highest decision-making power tertile had more than one and a half times the odds of using modern contraception compared with women in the lowest tertile [Adjusted Odds Ratio = 1.70; 95% Confidence Interval = 1.31–2.21, p<0.001].SignificanceOlder Nigerian women who are involved in making household decisions are also able to make decisions related to their fertility. Programs in Nigeria focused on increasing modern contraceptive use should include strategies to increase women's status through encouraging more visible involvement in decision-making across different spheres of their lives.

Women empowerment and use of contraception

BackgroundUse of contraception is influenced by many processes most by the women's empowerment. Women's decision making power and their autonomy within the household is the most important factor affecting contraceptive use. This paper aims to analyze the relationship between these two indicators of women's empowerment and the use of contraception. MethodsThis cross sectional study was conducted by personally interviewing 385 currently married women selected by systematic sampling on a pretested and validated questionnaire. Two indices, women's decision-making power index and women's autonomy index, were constructed and association with contraception use analyzed. Results & ConclusionThe study gives the evidence that decision making power is low in the respondents with 48.2% (95% CI 43.34, 53.31) of them having low level of power, while 27.6% (95% CI 23.24, 32.16) have medium level and 3.6% (95% CI 2.08, 5.88) having high level of power. 22.4% (95% CI 18.39, 26.70) of women do not have any autonomy as against 43.9% (95% CI 38.99, 48.89) with low level, 25% (95% CI 20.80, 29.44) with medium autonomy and 8.7% (95% CI 6.29, 11.98) scoring above 7 (high level of autonomy). In the study population it was found that 273 (70.7%, 95% CI 66.2, 75.28) of the respondents were using contraceptives. Women's autonomy, years of marriage and number of children were significant variables.

Developing a Culturally Competent Faith-Based Framework to Promote Breast Cancer Screening Among Afghan Immigrant Women

For the tens of thousands of Afghan immigrant women currently living in the USA, religious and cultural beliefs can act as a barrier to health care access. Islamic frameworks and men's gatekeeping roles often control women's decision-making power about their health care needs. Gatekeepers, however, can be reconceived as facilitators empowered to protect the well-being of the family, and positive messages within Islam can foster collaborative investment in women's health. Drawing upon a pilot study utilizing community-based participatory research involving the largest Afghan community in the USA, this paper documents the need for culturally sensitive faith-based education to promote breast cancer screening among this growing population.

Mobilizing women's groups for improved maternal and newborn health: Evidence for impact, and challenges for sustainability and scale up

Research conducted over the past decade has shown that community-based interventions can improve the survival and health of mothers and newborns in low- and middle-income countries. Interventions engaging women's groups in participatory learning and action meetings and other group activities, for example, have led to substantial increases in neonatal survival in high-mortality settings. Participatory interventions with women's groups work by providing a forum for communities to develop a common understanding of maternal and neonatal problems, as well as locally acceptable and sustainable strategies to address these. Potential partners for scaling up interventions with women's groups include government community health workers and volunteers, as well as organizations working with self-help groups. It is important to tailor scale-up efforts to local contexts, while retaining fidelity to the intervention, by ensuring that the mobilization of women's groups complements other local programs (e.g. home visits), and by providing capacity building for participatory learning and action methods across a range of nongovernmental organizations and government stakeholders. Research into scale-up mechanisms and effectiveness is needed to inform further implementation, and prospective surveillance of maternal and neonatal mortality in key scale-up sites can provide valuable data for measuring impact and for advocacy. There is a need for further research into the role of participatory interventions with women's groups to improve the quality of health services, health, and nutrition beyond the perinatal period, as well as the role of groups in influencing non-health issues, such as women's decision-making power.

Going beyond the surface: Gendered intra-household bargaining as a social determinant of child health and nutrition in low and middle income countries

A growing body of research highlights the importance of gendered social determinants of child health, such as maternal education and women's status, for mediating child survival. This narrative review of evidence from diverse low and middle-income contexts (covering the period 1970–May 2012) examines the significance of intra-household bargaining power and process as gendered dimensions of child health and nutrition. The findings focus on two main elements of bargaining: the role of women's decision-making power and access to and control over resources; and the importance of household headship, structure and composition. The paper discusses the implications of these findings in the light of lifecycle and intersectional approaches to gender and health. The relative lack of published intervention studies that explicitly consider gendered intra-household bargaining is highlighted. Given the complex mechanisms through which intra-household bargaining shapes child health and nutrition it is critical that efforts to address gender in health and nutrition programming are thoroughly documented and widely shared to promote further learning and action. There is scope to develop links between gender equity initiatives in areas of adult and adolescent health, and child health and nutrition programming. Child health and nutrition interventions will be more effective, equitable and sustainable if they are designed based on gender-sensitive information and continually evaluated from a gender perspective.

The effect of women's decision-making power on maternal health services uptake: evidence from Pakistan

A large body of research has explored the links between women's decision making and their uptake of maternal health services, but the evidence so far is inconclusive. This study uses the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey to examine the influence of household decision making on women's uptake of maternal health services. We find that women's decision-making power has a significant positive correlation with maternal health services uptake and that influential males' decision-making power has the opposite effect, after controlling for socio-economic indicators and supply-side conditions. Our findings suggest that empowering women and increasing their ability to make decisions may increase their uptake of maternal health services. They also suggest that policies directed toward improving women's utilization of maternal health services in Pakistan must target men as well as women.

Family-building strategies in urban India: converging demographic trends in two culturally distinct communities

This article examines desired family size and sex composition, the extent of son preference, the underlying motivations for the preference, and the knowledge and use of the new reproductive technologies to achieve these preferences in two culturally distinct but economically similar immigrant communities in New Delhi, India. The two groups – one group from Punjab, north India, and the other from Kerala, south India – are considered in the literature to be two extremes in the socio-cultural spectrum, particularly in terms of kinship organizations, gender relations, women's decision-making power, and levels of women's autonomy. The results of the study suggest that shared urban experience, acceptance of a small family norm, and easy accessibility of new reproductive technologies and abortion services have led to similarities in desired family size, preference for sons, and means taken to realize their preference in the two communities. The article concludes with a discussion of the intricate and intersecting views of parents on family size, son preference and daughter neglect, and the many ways of regulating family size and sex composition in urban India, and draws parallel with similar research findings in India and elsewhere in Asia.

Accessibility of diagnostic and treatment centres for visceral leishmaniasis in Gedaref State, northern Sudan

To evaluate the accessibility of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) treatment. Community-based study using in-depth qualitative interviews and focus group discussions with key informants, as well as quantitative questionnaires with 448 randomly selected heads of households in nine representative villages in three geographical sub-regions. Despite the high incidence of the disease, most people in Gedaref State know little about VL, and help at a treatment centre is usually sought only after traditional remedies and basic allopathic drugs have failed. Factors barring access to treatment are: lack of money for treatment and transport, impassability of roads, work priorities, severe cultural restrictions of women's decision-making power and distance to the next health center. To provide more VL patients with access to treatment in this highly endemic area, diagnostic and treatment services should be decentralized. Health education would be a useful tool to rationalise people's health-seeking behaviour.

Husbands’ and wives’ reports of women's decision-making power in Western Guatemala and their effects on preventive health behaviors

Surveys have attempted to measure married women's decision-making power by asking women who has a say and/or final say in a number of household decisions. In several studies where the same questions were posed to husbands, considerable discrepancies in reports were found. This paper assesses husband and wife reports of decision-making on four matters (whether or not to buy household items; what to do if a child becomes ill; whether or not to buy medicine for a family member who is ill; what to do if a pregnant women becomes very ill) and the relationship of these reports to three recent health behaviors (having an emergency plan during pregnancy; delivering in a health facility; having a postpartum checkup within 4 weeks). A sample of 1000 women in 53 communities in three departments of western Guatemala was selected using a stratified random sampling approach. A standard household questionnaire was used to identify the respondents as well as to obtain data on household characteristics. Husbands of interviewed women were interviewed in every other household giving information on 546 couples for this analysis. Women and men's questionnaires were similar and were designed to obtain information on the respondent's knowledge, attitudes and behaviors regarding maternal health. Consistent with other research, results show that relative to their husbands’ report, wives tend to under-report their household decision-making power. In couples with both partners educated and in couples in which women work for pay, both partners were significantly more likely to report that both of them participate in the final decisions than was the case in couples without education or in which the wife did not work for pay. Women's reports of their decision-making power was significantly related to the household having a plan for what to do in case of a maternal emergency, but was not associated with place of childbirth or with having a postpartum checkup, while husband's reports of the wife's decision-making power was negatively associated with the likelihood of having the last birth in a health facility.

Women's involvement in small-scale aquaculture in Northeast Thailand

In Northeast Thailand, women are heavily involved in small-scale aquaculture. However, as aquaculture becomes more intensive, women are in charge of less. Women's decision-making power in aquaculture and in the household is stronger when women have greater material resources and knowledge than their husbands; and the case studies on which the article draws show that what is important is not how much women have, but how much they have in relation to their husbands. The case studies also illustrate that women's gender roles and responsibilities, as well as the social expectations placed upon them, limit what they will gain through aquaculture. In intensive aquaculture in particular, women are expected to invest all their resources in this activity in order to sustain the family enterprise.

Explaining nutrition outcomes of food-based interventions through an analysis of women's decision-making power

Community-based nutrition program interventions have yielded measurable nutrition results. These interventions engage community members in and throughout the process to ensure that the interventions are acceptable and appropriate. Despite this, hunger and other forms of malnutrition continue to be problematic-- for some individuals, in some communities and in some regions. Current development discourse on agency and capabilities, and power and choices suggests an approach for achieving further improvements. Five community-based intervention research studies that strengthened women's contributions to nutrition by reducing their resource constraints are reviewed in light of this discourse. All five used food-based strategies that yielded improvements in micronutrient dietary intake or status in a timely fashion. Although the studies were guided by standard development practices including participatory approaches and methods, and addressed women's resource needs, they differed significantly in terms of the locus of decision-making power. This retrospective analysis suggests that nutrition programs could enhance their outcomes by investing in women's agency and decision-making power, and contribute to realizing the rights of all to development.

“Participatory” Research for Development Projects: A Comparison of the Community Meeting and Household Survey Techniques

Previous articleNext article No Access“Participatory” Research for Development Projects: A Comparison of the Community Meeting and Household Survey TechniquesJennifer Davis Dale Whittington Jennifer DavisMassachusetts Institute of Technology Search for more articles by this author Dale WhittingtonUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Search for more articles by this author Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel HillPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Economic Development and Cultural Change Volume 47, Number 1October 1998 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/452387 Views: 62Total views on this site Citations: 19Citations are reported from Crossref © 1998 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Jeanne L. Coffin-Schmitt, Emily V. 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Mariner Measurement and sampling error in mixed-methods research for the control of Peste des Petits Ruminants in the Karamoja subregion of Northeastern Uganda: A cautionary tale, Preventive Veterinary Medicine 9 (Aug 2021): 105464.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2021.105464Fiona Ottaviani, Anne Le Roy, Patrick O'sullivan Constructing Non-monetary Social Indicators: An Analysis of the Effects of Interpretive Communities, Ecological Economics 183 (May 2021): 106962.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.106962John-Michael Davis, Yaakov Garb Participatory shaping of community futures in e-waste processing hubs: Complexity, conflict and stewarded convergence in a Palestinian context, Development Policy Review 37, no.11 (Sep 2018): 67–89.https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12333Murat Sartas, Piet van Asten, Marc Schut, Mariette McCampbell, Moureen Awori, Perez Muchunguzi, Moses Tenywa, Sylvia Namazzi, Ana Sole Amat, Graham Thiele, Claudio Proietti, Andre Devaux, Cees Leeuwis, Khin Thet Wai , PLOS ONE 14, no.1111 ( 2019): e0223044.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223044Farhana Ahmed, M Shah Alam Khan, Jeroen Warner, Eddy Moors, Catharien Terwisscha Van Scheltinga Integrated Adaptation Tipping Points (IATPs) for urban flood resilience, Environment and Urbanization 30, no.22 (Jun 2018): 575–596.https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247818776510M. 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Luckert, Abwoli Banana, Joseph Bahati Asking Questions to Understand Rural Livelihoods: Comparing Disaggregated vs. Aggregated Approaches to Household Livelihood Questionnaires, World Development 40, no.99 (Sep 2012): 1810–1823.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.04.030Nobuyuki Ito, Kenji Takeuchi, Koichi Kuriyama, Yasushi Shoji, Takahiro Tsuge, Yohei Mitani The influence of decision-making rules on individual preferences for ecological restoration: Evidence from an experimental survey, Ecological Economics 68, no.8-98-9 (Jun 2009): 2426–2431.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.03.022JACKIE ROBINSON, BETH CLOUSTON, JUNGHO SUH, MILANI CHALOUPKA Are citizens' juries a useful tool for assessing environmental value?, Environmental Conservation 35, no.0404 (Feb 2009): 351.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892908005213Arla G. Bernstein, Romney S. 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“RESPECTING YOUR HOME”: ECONOMIC CHANGE AND GENDER IDEOLOGY IN A NATIVE COMMUNITY IN SOUTHERN VERACRUZ, MEXICO

ABSTRACT Research on gender and household dynamics in the Third World has shown us that women make an important contribution to the domestic economy. However, few studies have explored the relationship between women's income-generating activities, gender identities and decision-making power within the household. This paper explores these issues in Pajapan, a native community of southern Veracruz, Mexico. The analysis is based on the different options for income-generating activities available to women and the changing gender identities and household dynamics of first and second wives of polygamous men.