‘If your husband calls, you have to go’: understanding sexual agency among young married women in urban South India

Abstract

Background Early marriage is common in many developing countries, including India, this study’s setting. Women who marry early have little power within their marriage, particularly in the sexual domain. Yet, research is limited on women’s ability to control their marital sexual experiences. Methods We identified factors affecting sexual communication, an aspect of sexual agency, among married women ages 16–25, in Bangalore, India, and how factors associated with sexual communication differed from those influencing non-sexual agency. We ran ordered logit regression models for one outcome of sexual agency (sexual communication), and two outcomes of non-sexual agency (fertility control and financial decision-making). Qualitative data elucidated our findings. Results Agency was more restricted in sexual (11.3% with high sexual communication) than non-sexual domains (25.1% with high financial decision-making agency and 32.4% with high fertility control). Feeling prepared before the first sexual experience was significantly associated with sexual communication (OR=1.8, p=0.014). Longer marriage duration (OR 2.13, p=0.000) and having worked pre-marriage (OR 1.38, p=0.038) were also significant. However, few other measures of women’s resources increased their odds of sexual communication. Education, having children, pre-marital vocational training and marital intimacy were significant for non-sexual but not sexual agency. Thus, factors associated with sexual communication differed from those associated with non-sexual agency. Conclusions Policymakers seeking to enhance young married women’s sexual communication need to consider providing sex education to young women before they marry. More broadly, interventions designed to increase women’s agency need to be tailored to the type of agency being examined.

Women's empowerment and fertility: A review of the literature

“…Other studies with primary data collection relied on samples from subpopulations such as a village (Vlassoff, 1991) or slum (Pande et al, 2011). Four primary data collection studies were designed to evaluate the impact of microcredit, employment generation, or other non-governmental organization projects on the empowerment of women (Amin et al, 1995; Feldman et al, 2009; Mahmud, 1991; Steele et al, 1998).…”

“…We reviewed 18 articles that examined fertility preferences, such as ideal family size and spousal communication around desired fertility (Amin et al, 1995; El-Zeini, 2008; Goni and Saito, 2010; Hindin, 2000; Hogan et al, 1999; Isiugo-Abanihe, 1994; Jin, 1995; Kritz et al, 2000; Mason and Smith, 2000; McAllister et al, 2012; Moursund and Kravdal, 2003; Pande et al, 2011; Speizer et al, 2005; Steele et al, 1998; Upadhyay and Karasek, 2012; Vlassoff, 1991; Woldemicael, 2009; Zafar, 1996). All of these studies found that at least some women’s empowerment variables were positively associated with the ability to make fertility decisions and increased spousal communication, but many found significant positive and negative findings, depending upon the context and measures of empowerment used.…”

“…Multidimensional measures of women’s empowerment that represent a single domain sometimes improve explanatory power (Agarwala and Lynch, 2006). For example, empowerment measured by several items representing involvement in fertility and/or family planning decisions was consistently associated with fertility (e.g., Gwako, 1997; Jin, 1995; Pande et al, 2011). Lastly, considerable variation in the operationalization of empowerment measures likely affects what can be learned from the comparison of measures across studies.…”

Women’s Empowerment and Family Planning: A Review of the Literature

“…Several articles ( n = 8/46) examined the relationship between women’s empowerment and other family-planning-related outcomes ( n = 11 outcomes) (Sathar & Kazi, 1997; Hogan et al , 1999; Hindin, 2000; Wang & Chiou, 2008; Ip et al , 2009; Peyman et al , 2009; Hamid et al , 2011; Pande et al , 2011). These outcomes include: family planning approval, advocacy or knowledge (in general or regarding methods or sources of contraception); post-marital family planning use interval; effective use of contraception; unique combined outcomes, such as ‘fertility control efforts’ (current use and spousal communication) and ‘practice’ (correct use and visiting provider); and scores on constructed ‘contraceptive behaviours’ scales (which were notably non-comparable).…”

Safe, accessible medical abortion in a rural Tamil Nadu clinic, India, but what about sexual and reproductive rights?

“…1 However, several studies have pointed out that women often are unable to exercise such control even when they may be able to achieve autonomy and empowerment in other spheres. 2,3 A woman's ability to terminate an unwanted pregnancy has often been seen as an exercise of reproductive rights. Past studies on abortion from India have shown that the act of having an abortion may not necessarily be the exercise of reproductive choice and that women often use abortion as a desperate means to limit their family size after being unable to exercise choice in matters of sex and contraception.…”