Women’s empowerment as an enabling factor for choice of modern contraceptive methods in India: a multivariate analysis

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to see whether empowered women have a greater likelihood of choosing contraceptives compared to “not empowered women.” It is also interesting to see whether multiple dimensions of women’s empowerment have a greater association with the “modern method” or “traditional method” of contraception. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses data from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) to test this association. This paper has used a subsample of 81,779 married women aged 15–49. The outcome variable is “current use of contraceptives by method type.” This variable is categorical. There are three categories: modern method of contraception, traditional method of contraception and no use of contraception. The treatment variables are four indicators of women’s empowerment. This paper has included some demographic and socioeconomic factors as control variables. This paper has used the “multinomial logit model” to find the association among multiple dimensions of women’s empowerment and current use of contraceptives by method type. Findings After controlling for demographic and socioeconomic factors, the author observes that women’s empowerment has a positive association with the use of contraceptives. However, women’s empowerment has a more notable impact on traditional methods of contraception than on modern methods of contraception. This differential impact of women’s empowerment might be due to a husband’s perception that contraceptive use makes women promiscuous. Female employment, living children and husband’s education have a significant positive association with modern contraceptive use. Research limitations/implications A key limitation of this paper is that it is a cross-sectional study. This paper can say whether there is any association between empowerment indicators and the choice of the method of contraception. If the study is longitudinal, then one can say whether women’s empowerment is the reason behind the use of contraceptives. Originality/value Among several studies regarding the impact of women’s empowerment on the use of contraceptives, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is unique because it has studied the impact of both attitudinal and behavioral scales of empowerment on the current use of contraceptives by method type.