Women’s household decision-making autonomy and contraceptive behavior among Bangladeshi women

BackgroundWomen’s autonomy is a potentially important but less studied indicator of using contraception among women as well as ability to control their fertility. This study explores women’s decision-making autonomy as a potential indicator of the use of contraception in Bangladesh.MethodsThis cross-sectional study utilizes data from the Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey (BDHS) 2007. Information of 8456 currently married and non-pregnant women aged 15–40 years are analyzed to meet up the objective of this study.ResultsThe mean age of the respondents is 27.19 years and majority of the respondents are from rural areas (62.7%) and also Muslim (90.2%). A large number of women (26.1%) and their husbands (29.0%) have no education and 27.2% respondents were working at the time of interview. The mean number of living children is 2.14. 48.9% of the respondents are currently using a modern method of contraception. More than one-third women are not involved in their household decision-making. Results of this study indicate that household decision-making autonomy is significantly associated with current use of modern contraception, future intention to use contraception and discuss contraception with husband. This measure of women’s autonomy provides additional independent explanatory power of contraceptive behavior net of some other socio-demographic variables.ConclusionThis study argues in favor of increasing women’s autonomy to increase contraception using rate in this population.