Skip to main content

Women's Empowerment Indices in Decision-making

The Women's Empowerment Indices in Decision-making are two composite indices that measure 1) women's independent decision-making and 2) couples' joint decision-making to assess the overall effect of women's empowerment and its various conceptual dimensions on contraceptive use.

Developed by:

Waqas Hameed, Syed Khurram Azmat, Moazamm Ali, Muhammad Ishaque Sheikh, Ghazunfer Abbas, Marleen Temmerman, Bilal Iqbal Avan

Measure domains:

Economic decision-making
Household decision-making
Women's mobility

Items and subscales:

2 measures of women's empowerment with 3 dimensions

Independent decision-making index- 13 items

Joint deicion-making index- 13 items

Outcomes predicted:

Current contraceptive use: 1 = female-only methods 2 = couple methods

Study population(s):

Currently married women of reproductive age (15–49) who were residents of the catchment area and neither mentally nor physically handicapped, and not sick

Additional information:

Utilized a structured-framework approach to derive dimensions of women's empowerment.

Measure validated?:

N

Link(s) to Validation Study and/or Measure:

Citation of original article

Get citation
Hameed, W., Azmat, S. K., Ali, M., Sheikh, M. I., Abbas, G., Temmerman, M., & Avan, B. I. (2014). Women's empowerment and contraceptive use: the role of independent versus couples' decision-making, from a lower middle income country perspective. PLoS One, 9(8), e104633. 10.1371/journal.pone.0104633