No abstract

Using nationally representative survey data, this study explores gender‐role attitudes among unmarried adolescents aged 16–19 in Egypt, a society characterized by distinct and often segregated roles for men and women. Adolescents' views about desirable qualities in a spouse as well as more direct indicators of gender‐role attitudes are examined, including opinions about whether wives should defer to their husbands, share in household decision making, and have the responsibility for performing domestic tasks. The findings regarding spousal characteristics reflect strong gender differentiation. Girls and boys provide divergent profiles of an ideal spouse, profiles that reflect traditional gender roles. Girls are significantly less likely than boys to favor educational inequality between spouses, however. Neither boys nor girls have egalitarian gender‐role attitudes, although girls are significantly more likely to express less traditional attitudes. Multivariate analyses indicate that girls' and boys' attitudes do not vary consistently and significantly by socioeconomic background; in particular, increased schooling does not always promote egalitarian attitudes. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Conducting the first phase of GEAS revealed important insights for research with participants who are in this developmental phase of early adolescence. Methods that involve greater engagement and those that are visual were shown to work well irrespective of the cultural setting.

Implanon has a low first-year discontinuation rate as compared with other contraceptive methods. FP clients should be given sufficient pre-insertion counselling about side effects of Implanon and duration of protection. Physicians should offer Implanon mainly to clients seeking long-term contraception in order to decrease its discontinuation rate and increase its cost effectiveness.

This analysis is based on data from the Global Early Adolescent Study, which aims to understand the factors that predispose young people aged 10-14 years to positive or negative health trajectories. Specifically, interview transcripts from 202 adolescents and 191 parents across six diverse urban sites (Baltimore, Ghent, Nairobi, Ile Ife, Assuit and Shanghai) were analysed to compare the perceived risks associated with entering adolescence and how these risks differed by gender. Findings reveal that in all sites except Ghent, both young people and their parents perceived that girls face greater risks related to their sexual and reproductive health, and because of their sexual development, were perceived to require more protection. In contrast, when boys grow up, they and their parents recognised that their independence broadened, and parents felt that boys were strong enough to protect themselves. This has negative consequences as well, as boys were perceived to be more prone to risks associated with street violence and peer pressure. These differences in perceptions of vulnerability and related mobility are markers of a gender system that separates young women and men's roles, responsibilities and behaviours in ways that widen gender power imbalance with lifelong social and health consequences for people of both sexes.