Women's empowerment and unmet needs for family planning in Indonesia

Abstract

The unmet needs target at 9.9 percent from 2015-2019 The National Medium-Term Development Plan has not been achieved. The 2017 Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey (IDHS) show that unmet needs were 10.6 percent. Unmet needs are factors causing unwanted pregnancy, which can cause maternal morbidity and mortality; to improve maternal health, that is necessary to address women's empowerment, which is the fifth objective of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study aims to study the relationship between women's empowerment on the unmet needs in Indonesia. This study uses data from the 2017 IDHS. The analysis unit is fecund women who were married and required family planning involving observations of 26,249 individuals. The analytical methods used are binary and multinomial logit regression. The results showed that the components of women's empowerment had a statistically significant effect on all unmet needs categories, namely women's work participation, level of knowledge, participation in household decision making, and asset ownership. Women's work participation, level of knowledge, and asset ownership negatively affect unmet needs. Participation in household decision making has a positive effect on unmet needs. Meanwhile, attitude toward wife-beating has no significant effect on all unmet needs categories.