Women's empowerment and fertility regulation behaviour in rural areas of Bangladesh

Abstract

Objective: Identify socioeconomic and demographic factors that may affect women's empowerment and eventually their desired fertility and contraceptive use. Methods: Data for this study came from the MCH-FP Extension Project of ICDDR,B. Working within the government system, the Project conducts, operations research to improve health and family planning service-delivery in Bangladesh. A survey among over 10,000 married women aged less than 50 years was conducted during 1993-1994 in four project areas. Three types of variables: mobility, decision-making power, and support for family planning activities were considered to be indicators of women's empowerment. Fertility regulation behaviour was measured by desired fertility (additional children desired by women) and contraceptive use. Results: Several demographic and socioeconomic factors were found to be related to desired fertility and contraceptive use. Middle-aged women of the sample had higher empowerment than others, measured by all three indicators. Decision-making power and support for family planning were higher among educated than uneducated mothers. Both mobility and decision-making power were lower in better off households, while support for family planning was not related to income. Women who had income-earning activities, who handled cash, or who were members of NGOs ranked high on all indicators. These three empowerment indicators were, in turn, associated with desired fertility and contraceptive use. Mobility was not related to desired fertility, but was positively related to contraceptive use. Women with higher decision-making power had a lower desire for additional children and higher contraceptive use. As expected, family planning supporters had lower desires for children and higher contraceptive use. There were large variations of empowerment and fertility regulation behaviour between the four study areas. Conclusions: Women's empowerment has been found to influence desired fertility. To formulate policies to enhance women's status, policy planners require information on the socioeconomic and demographic factors that are associated with women's empowerment