Background: A fundamental element of gender equity are women's rights to reproductive choice. Women's empowerment is often linked to enabling decisions around contraceptive use and reduced fertility worldwide, although limited evidence is currently available around contraceptive use and decision making in ASEAN countries.
Objective: To examine the association between women's empowerment and contraceptive use in five selected ASEAN member states.
Methods: Data from the latest Demographic and Health Survey of Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, The Philippines, and Timor-Leste were used. The main outcome was contraceptive use among married women (15-49 years) from these five countries. We considered four indicators of empowerment: labor force participation; disagreement with reasons for wife beating; decision-making power over household issues; and knowledge level.
Results: Labor force participation was found to be significantly associated with contraceptive use in all nations. Disagreement with justification of wife beating was not significantly related to contraceptive use in any country. Decision-making power (higher) was only associated with contraceptive use in Cambodia, while higher knowledge levels were associated with contraceptive use in Cambodia, and Myanmar.
Conclusion: This study suggests women's labor force participation is an important determinant of contraceptive use. Policies designed to open the labor market and empower women through education should be implemented to enable women's participation. Gender inequality may also be tackled by engaging women in decision-making processes at national, community and family levels.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10298759 | PMC |
| http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287442 | PLOS |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Women empowerment, efficiency and food security nexus in rural Ethiopia: A generalized structural equation modeling.
Heliyon
January 2025
Center for Food Security Studies, College of Development Studies, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.
Agriculture has been recognized as a key sector to leverage for improved food security. Yet, the evidence on agriculture-gender linkages to food security is still scarce and winding. This study investigates the impact of women empowerment in agriculture on efficiency and food security of households and individuals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEffect of depression and empowerment on medication adherence in patients with breast cancer: a descriptive survey.
BMC Nurs
January 2025
Wonkwang University Hospital, Iksan, South Korea.
Background: Given the global prevalence of breast cancer and its high mortality rate, adherence to long-term anti-hormonal therapy is crucial for preventing recurrence and improving survival outcomes. Previous research demonstrates how psychological factors including depression and empowerment impact medication adherence. However, comprehensive studies remain limited, especially in Korea.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnited Nations, the Struggle for Gender Equity, and Queering Global Science.
OMICS
January 2025
OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology, New Rochelle, New York, USA.
UN Women is the United Nations "entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women". UN Women is an example of the institutions of global governance that followed the gender turn in women's rights over the past 2 decades. This opinion commentary unpacks a brief history of UN Women, and the ongoing disparities in gender diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in science, engineering, and medicine, not to mention in science communication, with the aim to shed light on the adverse impacts of gender essentialism and gender binary.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAttitudes toward sexual and reproductive health and rights and their associations with reproductive agency: a population-based cross-sectional study in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zimbabwe.
Sex Reprod Health Matters
January 2025
Associate Professor, Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; Associate Professor, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
We investigated the association between values and attitudes toward sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and gender equality, with reproductive agency in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. Using 2020-21 World Values Survey (WVS) data (n = 3,096), we utilized the SRHR Support Index including five subindices to gauge SRHR attitudes, the WVS Equality Index for gender equality values, and the perceived level of freedom of choice and control over whether, when, and how many children to have as a proxy for reproductive agency. Descriptive statistics, bivariate, and multivariable logistic regressions were used to analyse how values and attitudes differed between respondents of high vs low reproductive agency using the median as cutoff, stratified by country and sex.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFValidation of the Contraception-Focused Preference-Aligned Fertility Management Index in Uganda and Nigeria.
Contraception
January 2025
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 500 5th Avenue N, Seattle, WA, 98109, USA.
Objective: To evaluate construct validity of the contraception-focused "Preference-aligned Fertility Management" (PFM) Index, a new person-centered and rights-based outcome measure, in Nigeria and Uganda.
Study Design: We analyzed survey data from convenience samples of new users of contraception and non-users of contraception in Uganda and users of contraception in Nigeria. PFM Index scores were calculated by combining two indicators: Indicator 1 assessing alignment between desire to use contraception and actual use; Indicator 2 evaluating whether users' current methods are desired.
Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!