Geleta, D. (2015), “Gender norms and family planning decision-making among married men and women in rural Ethiopia: A qualitative study,” Science Journal of Public Health, 3(2), pp. 242–250.
The aim of this study was to explore gender norms’ influence on family planning decision-making among married men and women in rural Kebeles, Ethiopia, with the purpose of identifying the preexisting conditions for the existence of those gender norms and how gender norms are influenced by couple communications and decision-making power, childbearing, and family size. A qualitative study using a grounded approach was employed, and data collection included in-depth interviews with key informants and focus group discussions with both married women and married men.
The study revealed that gender norms practised in the community begin at birth. Cultural beliefs accepted from the previous generation, beliefs and attitudes related to gender, and a lack of education were stated as the main pre-existing conditions for gender norms in the community, and thus religion is not considered a support of gender norms, and almost all participants said the religion they follow never supports gender norms.
Other findings include men’s need for more children as a sign of social prestige, fear of side effects, misconceptions, and rumours, and women’s lack of decision-making power as one of the most stated challenges regarding poor utilisation of family planning among married men and women. These differences in gender norms in the community were barriers to family planning use in the community. Beyond the complexities of societal gender norms, they push husbands and wives in opposing directions. which means that there is a community of attitudes and beliefs that are in constant opposition to one another regarding both genders.
The results of this study demonstrate that the issue of gender norms was not given emphasis in the community, and the author concludes by stating that although there have been some changes in the community due to some awareness raised about women’s rights or equality through woreda women’s and children affairs, the identified gender norms are still heavily practised in daily life in the community and recommends that interventions on this matter should be making a sustained effort to launch awareness-raising activities, community discussions, even at the individual level, and men need to be given the chance, free and safe forum, to discuss their roles as men in community and household level as this would be a possible solution to those gender-related issues on family planning decision-making.