Decision-Making Patterns and Contraceptive Use: Evidence from Uganda

Laurie DeRose, University of Maryland
Alex Ezeh, African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC)

We differentiate two decision-making patterns in which women have a voice—joint decisions and wife-dominated decisions—and test whether these as well as husband-dominated decisions each have distinct effects on contraceptive use. We confirm that wife-dominated decisions are the most likely to result in contraceptive use: in Uganda where fertility is high, joint decisions were more likely to result in traditional reproductive behavior. We also identify important community-level effects: in communities where husband-dominated decision-making is more common, the wife holding autonomous views does not promote contraceptive use as much as it does in more egalitarian settings.