John, N.A., Tsui, A.O., and Roro, M. (2019), “Quality of contraceptive use and women’s paid work and earnings in peri-urban Ethiopia,” Feminist Economics, 26(1), pp. 23–43.
The study investigated whether a woman’s quality of contraceptive use, as determined by the length of use and the method she chooses, has a positive impact on important economic outcomes like her capacity to work in the labour market, receive compensation for her work, and contribute more to her family’s income. The study uses retrospective contraceptive use history and panel data from two time points in a peri-urban community in Ethiopia to explore the impact of quality of contraceptive use as measured by duration of use and type of method. The analytical sample consisted of 557 female contraceptive users and used the woman’s dataset as the primary dataset, while the man’s dataset was used to construct a few controls and covariates, such as household wealth and the husband’s characteristics. Multivariate regression models were implemented based on the nature of the outcome variable.
The authors discovered that family planning programmes can ultimately play a crucial role in the socioeconomic empowerment of women and that modern contraceptives enable women to work in the labour market and earn an income for their work. This can assist communities and families in finding ways to escape poverty, which may be especially important for poorer families. According to the study, poorer women in the sample were more likely than wealthier women to participate in the labour force and be paid for their labour. Because they made larger contributions to the family income than the wealthier women, their families also tended to depend more on their income. Therefore, having access to affordable and effective modern contraceptive methods can give poor families much-needed extra income and give women more ongoing employment opportunities, allowing them to break the cycle of poverty.
The findings demonstrate how important contraceptive use is in enabling women to work and receive compensation for their labour. The study found evidence that, despite having nothing to do with a woman’s contribution to the family’s income, regular contraceptive use was related to a woman’s ability to work in the labour market and be paid for her labour.
Furthermore, the study findings provide an added drive for family planning programmes to understand and tackle method discontinuity because of the far-reaching effects it can have on women’s economic productivity and earnings. The paper concludes by stating that access to modern contraception and the realisation of ideal sexual and reproductive health can be key factors in paving the way for women’s economic empowerment.