The advent of family planing as a social norm in Bangladesh: Women's experiences

Reproductive Health Matters

Volumn 4, Issue 7, 1996, Pages 66-78

  Schuler, Sidney Ruth ^a   Hashemi, Syed M ^a   Cullum, Amy ^a   Hassan, Mirza ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0010457083     PISSN: 09688080     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0968-8080(96)90007-5     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. Cleland J, Phillips JF, Amin S et al, 1994. The Determinants of Reproductive Change in Bangladesh: Success in a Challenging Environment. World Bank Regional and Sectoral Studies. World Bank, Washington DC.
2. Larson A and Mitra SN, 1992. Family planning in Bangladesh: an unlikely success story. International Family Planning Perspectives. 18(4):123-29.
3. Simmons R, Baqee L, Koenig MA et al, 1988. Beyond supply: the importance of female family planning workers in rural Bangladesh. Studies in Family Planning. 19(1): 29-38.
4. Schuler SR, Hashemi SM and Jenkins AH, 1995. Bangladesh's family planning success story: a gender perspective. International Family Planning Perspectives. 21(4):132-37.
5. Schuler SR and Hashemi SM, 1994. Credit programs, women's empowerment, and contraceptive use in rural Bangladesh. Studies in Family Planning. 25(2):65-74.
6. The six villages are located in Magura, Faridpur and Rangpur Districts. The sites are not exceptional in terms of access to various services and transportation, and economic base. To maximise the number of potential users of family planning in the 120-household sample, only households with a married woman aged 35 or less, with at least one living child, were included in the sampling frame. A household census was done in each of the six villages. The households were then stratified to get 5 households of nonparticipants and 15 households of participants in each of the four villages covered by the credit programmes. Within these groups, stratification by age group was done to ensure a reasonable distribution.
7. Cain M, 1979. Class, patriarchy, and women's work in Bangladesh. Population and Development Review. 5(3): 405-38.
8. Cain M, 1981. Risk and insurance: perspectives on fertility and agrarian change in rural India and Bangladesh. Population and Development Review. 7(3):425-74.
9. Cain M, 1983. Fertility as an adjustment to risk. Population and Development Review. 9(4):688-702.
10. Abdullah TA and Zeidenstein SA, 1982. Village Women of Bangladesh: Prospects for Change. Pergamon Press, Oxford.
11. Stark NN, 1993. Gender and therapy management: reproductive decision making in rural Bangladesh. Dissertation: Southern Methodist University.
12. Choudhury AY, 1988. Content Analysis of Family Planning Messages. Program for the Introduction and Adaptation of Contraceptive Technology, Dhaka.
13. Khuda B, Barkat A, Whitney EE et al, 1993. The National Family Planning/Maternal-Child Health IEC Strategy for Bangladesh, 1993-2000. University Research Corporation, Dhaka.
14. Khuda B and Mitra SN, 1986. Family Planning Motivational Campaign, Second Evaluation Study- 1985. Mitra and Associates, Dhaka.
15. South Asia Study of Population Policy and Programmes: Bangladesh. United Nations Fund for Population Activities, Dhaka, 1990.
16. Rabbani et al, 1989. Evaluation of IEM Programs in Bangladesh. Graphics Information Systems Ltd, Dhaka.
17. Mahbud et al, 1989. A Study on Improving the Effectiveness of the National Radio Campaign in Support of the Population Program. Organization for Population and Development, Dhaka.
18. Schuler SR, and Hashemi SM, 1992. Islamic Ideology, Contraception and the Emergence of Women in Bangladesh. JSI Working Paper No. 2. John Snow Research and Training, Arlington VA.
19. Simmons R, Mita R and Koenig MA, 1992. Employment in family planning and women's status in Bangladesh. Studies in Family Planning. 23(2): 97-109
20. One of the inherent difficulties in asking questions about something as sensitive as power relations within the family, particularly if they are changing, is that direct questions often elicit normative responses. Taking this into account, one of our strategies was to put the most direct questions about power relations at the end of the interview, so that the respondent might assume that they were being asked as a follow-up to any specific accounts of events that the respondent might have provided in replying to earlier questions. We also mixed general with specific questions. This was to provide the 'safer' option of speaking in general terms for respondents who felt threatened by the topic of spousal conflict over family planning, while also encouraging respondents who might be inclined to talk specifically about themselves. In many cases, however, the interviewers failed to ask the final two questions, either because they felt that the respondents would perceive them as threatening or redundant, or because the interview had gone on for a long time and the respondent was becoming impatient. In some cases also, the questions were asked but the respondent was unwilling to answer.
21. Mason KO, 1986. The status of women: conceptual and methodological issues in demographic studies. Sociological Forum. 1(2):284-99.
22. Hong S and Seltzer J, 1994. The Impact of Family Planning on Women's Lives: Toward a Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda. FHI Women's Studies Project, Working Paper 94-02.
23. The interviewers reviewed all the transcripts and listed all nontraditional activities and behaviour observed which may be considered signs of innovative behaviour or empowerment. The lists included activities such as work outside of the home, use of health services and other interactions in the public sphere, control over resources, decisions within the family, and various instances in which women took unusual initiatives in trying to solve problems or improve their families' futures. The researchers also noted whether or not the woman had used or was currently using a method of contraception, who initiated this, and when this was initiated in relation to other events on the list. The pair of researchers from each village were asked to think about whether, and how, use of contraception was related to the other activities on the list, and to present to the rest of the group their reasons for arguing whether or not family planning was or was not related to other non-traditional or empowered behaviours in the case of each of the women interviewed. In subsequent trips to the villages they were asked to further explore the possible connections that they had identified between reproductive and other aspects of empowerment.
24. Mita R and Simmons R, 1995. Diffusion of the culture of contraception: program effects on young women in rural Bangladesh. Studies in Family Planning. 26(1):1-13.
25. Schuler SR, Hashemi SM and Riley AP, 1996. Men's violence against women in Bangladesh. Social Science and Medicine. (Forthcoming).