Open AccessWOMEN EMPOWERMENT & FERTILITY BEHAVIOUR
Author(s) -
Samina Badar,
Misbah Shahid,
Shaheena Manzoor,
Seema Yasmeen,
Mohammad Anwar Chaudhary
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
the professional medical journal/the professional medical journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2071-7733
pISSN - 1024-8919
DOI - 10.29309/tpmj/2007.14.02.4891
Subject(s) - fertility , respondent , medicine , empowerment , demography , family planning , gynecology , population , environmental health , research methodology , sociology , political science , law
Objective: To find out the relationship, if any, between womenempowerment and their fertility behaviour. Design: A cross sectional descriptive study. Place & duration of study:The study was conducted in selected area of Bahawalpur City. The data was collected from March to June 2003.Subjects & methods: A total number of 872 households were selected by systematic random selection from upper,middle and lower class. Data was collected from eligible respondent (currently married women of reproductive agegroup 15-49 year having at least one child of 3 years age) through a pre-designed questionnaire. Independent variableempowerment of women was calculated by giving score to education, occupation and autonomy at micro level.Dependent variables (fertility and use of contraception) were assessed for significance by applying chi square test.Results: 41.9% high empowered women were in the opinion that birth of a male child did not provide security (p<.001).A strong positive association between level of empowerment and contraception use (P<.001). There is inverserelationship between women empowerment and number of children (<.001). Conclusion: There is strong inverserelationship between women empowerment and fertility while positive association exist with contraceptive use.