Women's role in sanitation decision making in rural coastal Odisha, India

Abstract

BackgroundWhile women and girls face special risks from lack of access to sanitation facilities, their ability to participate and influence household-level sanitation is not well understood. This paper examines the association between women's decision-making autonomy and latrine construction in rural areas of Odisha, India.MethodsWe conducted a mixed-method study among rural households in Puri district. This included a cross sectional survey among 475 randomly selected households. These were classified as either having a functional latrine, a non-functional latrine or no latrine at all. We also conducted 17 in-depth interviews and 9 focus group discussions among household members of these three categories of households.ResultsDecisions on the construction of household level sanitation facilities were made exclusively by the male head in 80% of households; in 11% the decision was made by men who consulted or otherwise involved women. In only 9% of households the decision was made by women. Households where women were more involved in general decision making processes were no more likely to build a latrine, compared to households where they were excluded from decisions. Qualitative research revealed that women’s non-involvement in sanitation decision making is attributed to their low socio-economic status and inability to influence the household’s financial decisions. Female heads lacked confidence to take decisions independently, and were dependent on their spouse or other male family members for most decisions. The study revealed the existence of power hierarchies and dynamics within households, which constrained female’s participation in decision-making processes regarding sanitation.ConclusionsThough governments and implementers emphasize women’s involvement in sanitation programmes, socio-cultural factors and community and household level dynamics often prevent women from participating in sanitation-related decisions. Measures are needed for strengthening sanitation policies and effective implementation of programmes to address gender power relations and familial relationships that influence latrine adoption and use.

Information-Seeking Behaviour of Women Regarding Household Health and Hygiene Practices

“…It shows that as the age of the women increases, the level of their information seeking behviour decreases. These findings are in the agreement with the findings of the studies conducted by Routray Ramrao [3,8].…”

“…behaviour included activities like identifying information needs, seeking information from various information sources and evaluating or checking information sources. On seeking behaviour, respondents were categorized into three categories; highly active, active and passive able 4 indicated that nearly half of the respondents (50%) were active seekers followed by 42 per cent of the respondents who had passive informationseeking behaviour and only 8 per cent respondents were highly active informationseekers for household health and hygiene One of the reasons for women's passive was that they lack confidence to take decisions independently, and were dependent on their spouse or other male family members for most decisions such as the The results were in line with the findings of the study of et al, (2017) [3].…”

“…As far as information on health and hygiene is concerned, women are often regarded as guardians of household health and hygiene. Women are considered to be primary users, providers, and managers of health and hygiene in a household [3]. The present study investigated the information-seeking behavior of women regarding household health and hygiene practices, for attaining a greater insight into the possible requirements for providing relevant and useful information related to health and hygiene.…”

Role of Women Led Sanitation in Community Development

“…Considering the Gender Equality Index the African decision-makers need to concentrateand address some important obstacles that prevent African women from engaging on alevel playing field with men, and better focus its genderrelatedpolicy dialogue and interventions (African Development Bank Group, 2015). Routray, Parimita. (2017) examined the association between women's decision-making autonomy and latrine adoption in rural areas of Odisha and found that women's enjoy less freedom of making choice and decision with respect to installation of sanitation facility due to prevailing socio-cultural and economic constraints, and power hierarchies among household members (Routray, Parimita, 2017).Goel, Palaket., al conducted research study and concluded that there is need to educate women about how to livehealthy reproductive life using satisfactory absorbent material and its consequences during menstruation period as well as how to manage Menstrual Hygiene situation (Goel, Palak, et., al.…”

The Approach of Logit Model to the Decision Making of Small-Scale Fisherman?s Wives.

“…Therefore, family decision making is in the hands of fishermen (Di Ciommo and Schiavetti, 2012; Mutikukuru- Maravanyika et al, 2016;Routray et al, 2017) in improving the household economy through empowerment (Nandi, 2015; Haque, 2016;Shakir, 2017;Agnihotri and Malipatil, 2018). Economic empowerment of coastal communities has an influence on the welfare of coastal communities (Rostin, 2016) through family income and household consumption expenditures (Michael, 2010).…”