Men Matter: Additive and Interactive Gendered Preferences and Reproductive Behavior in Kenya

Citation: Dodoo, F. N. Men Matter: Additive and Interactive Gendered Preferences and Reproductive Behavior in Kenya.
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Tagged: uw-madison (RSS), wisconsin (RSS), sociology (RSS), demography (RSS), prelim (RSS), qual (RSS), WisconsinDemographyPrelimAugust2009 (RSS)

Summary

Using data from the 1989 and 1993 Kenya Demographic and Health Surveys, nationally representative samples of women, Dodoo examines the roles of the reproductive preferences of men and women on contraceptive use. Men are sampled differently in the two surveys; in the 1989 survey, a randomly selected fraction of the husbands of the female respondents were interviewed, regardless of age. In the 1993 survey, an independent subsample of men aged 20-54 was interviewed. Some of these men can be matched with spouses who were interviewed as part of the main sample of women. Pairing polygamous men with each of their wives produces 1,129 couples in 1989 and 1,259 couples in 1993. The dependent variable used in the equations is a binary variable of current use of contraception (yes/no). The independent variables used in the equation are reproductive preferences (no more children, uncertain or want to wait two or more years, want a child within two the next years), education of each spouse (no schooling, some primary schooling, some secondary schooling), age of each spouse, number of living children (for each spouse), marriage type (polygamous, monogamous), rural-urban residence, region of residence, number of deceased children (for women), and number of times discussed family planning issues in past year (consensus that discussion occurred more than twice; consensus that no discussion occurred; consensus that discussion occurred once or lack of consensus). Dodoo used logistic regression analysis because the dependent variable is binary. The presence of polygamous marriages in the data means that a number of the observations are not independent. There are 11 polygamous men in the dataset. Dodoo used generalized estimating equations to correct for the violation of the independence assumption. Dodoo compares the results of an additive model with those from a model that takes into account the joint preferences of spouses. The joint preferences model includes a nine-category variable that crosses the preferences of the wife with the preferences of the husband. The ranking of joint-preference categories by contraceptive use shows that couples are most likely to use contraception when both partners want to stop. The next highest levels of contraceptive use in order occur when husbands want to stop, but wives want to space; when wives want to stop, but husbands want to space; and when both want to space. In the 1989 data it appears both partners must want to cease childbearing for a significant effect on contraceptive use to appear. In the 1993 sample, a preference for spacing for either spouse coupled with a preference for stopping for the other spouse also increases the likelihood of contraceptive use. However, the odds are roughly 50% higher if it is the husband rather than the wife who wants to cease childbearing.