Contraceptive Use in Ghana: What about Women Empowerment?

Abstract

Introduction: Although contraceptive usage appears to be increasing in Ghana, 30 and 42 percent of married and unmarried women respectively still have unmet need for family planning services partly due to their inability to exercise their basic rights on fertility issues. Meanwhile, expanding freedom of choice and actions to shape women's life is critical to how women can be autonomous about issues surrounding their fertility. On this premise, this study aimed at investigating empowerment status and usage of contraceptives among women in the reproductive age in Ghana. Methods: The study made use of the 2014 Ghana Demographic and health survey with a sample size of 9396. The outcome variable was contraceptive use whilst the main independent variable was women empowerment (measured by ability to decide on a woman's own healthcare, large household purchases and visiting family members). Both bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regressions were carried out generating odd ratios to explore the association at 95% confidence interval. Results: The results indicated that women who were not deciding alone on their own healthcare were less probable to use contraceptives (OR = 0.92, CI = 0.80 -1.07) as well as those who were not deciding alone on large household purchases (OR = 0.96, CI = 0.82 -1.11) and visiting family members (OR = 0.63, CI = 0.93 -1.25) at the bivariate level. However, at the multivariate level, higher likelihoods of contraceptive use were found among those who were not deciding alone on health (OR = 1.26, CI = 1.18 -1.68), large household purchases (OR = 1.30, CI = 1.08 -1.55) and visiting family members (OR = 1.32, CI = 1.12 -1.57). Conclusion: This has inspired the need to intensify women empowerment interventions through mass media and all possible avenues in order to enhance reproductive health.

Women decision-making capacity and intimate partner violence among women in sub-Saharan Africa

“…We also looked at how socio-demographic factors influence IPV among Women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our study found an overall prevalence of IPV of 37% and this is consistent with findings of previous studies on the prevalence of IPV in Sub-Saharan region [ 1 , 25 , 31 ]. These previous however included the general regions in Africa but our study considered only women in Sub-Saharan Africa.…”

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“…However, only a quarter of women in this study took healthcare decisions alone. This is in line with the findings of previous studies in Ghana [27,50]. We realised that women who take healthcare decisions alone were less likely to seek healthcare for childhood illnesses, compared to those who did not decide alone.…”

Women’s reproductive health decision-making: A multi-country analysis of demographic and health surveys in sub-Saharan Africa

“…In low- and middle-income countries, particularly sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, there are several socio-economic and cultural factors which affect women’s ability to make decision regarding their own health and those of their dependents, especially children [14,15]. Earlier studies have focused on some aspects of reproductive health, women autonomy and decision-making, using sub-populations within some countries in sub-Saharan Africa [5,10,16,17,18,19,20]. As far as we know, no study has investigated the subject in multiple countries in the region.…”

“…Decision making is a process that starts with problem identification, data collection and gathering, analysis of data, findings, selecting an appropriate and most suitable solution from the alternative solutions and finally evaluation of the process [23]. Socio-demographic characteristics such as level of education [5], partner educational level [5, 10] and wealth status [10, 16] have the potential of influencing an individual in making informed decision. Exposure to information and knowledge and the ability to provide for one’s needs is a positive influence on decision-making.…”

“…By extension, a woman’s decision making about her sexual and reproductive health will be effectively accomplished based on the ability to provide for her needs and her exposure to knowledge. Nonetheless, there are possibilities of other background characteristics such as religious affiliation [10,16], place of residence [23] and cultural leanings [18, 19, 20] that can have impact on the decision-making process [15]. In sub-Saharan Africa in particular, religious affiliation, cultural and social and place of residence settings also affect women’s reproductive health decision-making [10].…”