Gender Norms and Family Planning Decision-Making Among Married Men and Women, Rural Ethiopia: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Family planning service contributes a lot in reduction of morbidity and mortality and it does more help couples to limit the number of their children. Women's ability to control her on fertility strongly affected by social constructs of Gender role, expectations and gender inequalities. Objective: To explore influence of gender norms on family planning decision-making among married men and women, rural Ethiopia, 2013. Methods: A qualitative study using grounded approach was employed. Data collection included in-depth interview with key informants and focus group discussion as conducted with both married women and married men. Interview was done using a semi-structured interview guide with open-ended questions. Axial coding was employed. Codes were aggregated and memos are developed. Result: Different gender norms in the community were obstacles for family planning utilization in the community. Those different gender norms directly or being by complement with each other acts as the barriers of FP utilizations. Decision making power of men/husbands on family planning (needs for his consent by women/wives), seeing children as social prestige due to cultural beliefs, low status of women in community, undermine knowledge of women, limiting responsibility of women/wives to home, dominance of men/husbands on households, etc. Conclusion: Due to men's dominance at the household level and other related factors, the role of women on family planning decision making was limited to merely accepting the decisions of their husbands. Furthermore due to men's power of decision making the final decision was made based on the men's interest.