Women's Intrahousehold Decision-Making Power and Their Health Status: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

Abstract

This study examines how various determinants of women's decision-making power affect their health status in rural Ethiopia. It identifies the determinants of women's decision-making power using a qualitative survey conducted over 2008-9, and it investigates their effects on women's health status using the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey panel dataset for the period 1994-2004. The study finds that women's health status is positively associated with their education, the number of brothers they have, whether they live in their birthplace, and whether their age is close to that of their husband. In contrast, women's health is negatively associated with whether they are in a marriage of their choice compared to an arranged marriage. The study concludes that multiple factors originating from context-specific gender norms affect women's decision-making power and have differential effects on women's health outcomes.

Forced Marriage and Birth Outcomes

“…Social condemnation of the practice is on the rise, at least in urban areas, and the country recently became more serious about law enforcement in this context. In contrast, there is virtually no law enforcement in South Africa (Nkosi and Buthelezi, 2013;Rice, 2014), no capacity to investigate kidnappings in Ethiopia (Dito, 2015), and complete official denial in Armenia (Edling, 2012). Most incredibly, the Russian Duma (which has authority over Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia where kidnapping is also practiced) declined in 2006 to authorize investigative responsibility by the state into cases of bride kidnapping because the law excluded cases in which men were kidnapped for similar purposes (Sirazhudinova, 2013).…”

“…According to ethnographic reports, various forms of kidnapping (also referred to as abduction or capture) existed in societies across Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas in the past (Ayres, 1974;Barnes, 1999;Bates, 1974;McLaren, 2001;Stross, 1974). In many places, kidnapping no longer seems to be a common phenomenon, but evidence shows that it is still practiced in such countries as Armenia, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, and South Africa (Dito, 2015;Edling, 2012;Nkosi and Buthelezi, 2013;Rice, 2014;Werner, 2009). …”

Association of husbands' education status with unintended pregnancy in their wives in southern Ethiopia: A cross-sectional study

“…Socioeconomic disadvantage, including limited education, may be an important risk factor for unintended pregnancies [8]. This may be particularly relevant in the typical rural Ethiopian family where the husband is the dominant decision maker on most aspects of life [9,10]. Dominant decision-making by the husband could impact the reproductive life of women [11].…”

Bride kidnapping and gendered labor migration: evidence from Kyrgyzstan

“…Sometimes the pressure to marry comes from a threat of physical or sexual violence, but more often the social stigma of being kidnapped without marrying leads women to acquiesce to the kidnap marriage. Although bride kidnapping is not common on a global scale, it is practiced in a number of countries, including Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Ethiopia, and South Africa (Bates, Conant, and Kudat 1974;Dito 2015;Edling 2012;Nkosi and Buthelezi 2013;Werner 2009). Notably, countries where bride kidnapping is practiced are often countries where labour migration (whether domestic or international) is also common, and it is likely that the processes of bride kidnapping and migration influence each other.…”