Contraseption and Gender Equality

Contraception and Gender Equality

According to “Gender inequality and the ‘East-West’ divide in contraception: An analysis at the individual, the couple, and the country level,” the study hypothesizes the higher gender inequality in a society is associated with higher incidence of NO use of modern reversible contraception and the higher use of permanent methods like female sterilization. Socioeconomic status is strongly related to women education, employment, and gender equality.

The study concludes countries with higher gender equality measured by women employment and higher socioeconomic levels have higher use of female reversible contraception methods.

The study compares the use of female reversible contraception methods to, other means or no contraception in 17 European countries; Austria, France, Germany, Norway, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine. The study includes East and West Europe countries to compare the division and gender equality in the 2 societies. Some countries do not fulfill inclusion criteria and are excluded due to the lack of data, geographic location and difficulty to differentiate the requirements of the study

The study uses compared variables such as women’s education, relevant education, occupation and relative occupation. Also, the study uses methods including; No Contraception, female reversible methods like contraceptive pills, IUD, female barriers, and spermicides. Female rhythm method, male reversible methods like coitus interruptus and male barriers (condom), permanent sterilization like female tubal ligation or male vasectomy.

This study results and discussion concludes higher socioeconomic status, as well as higher gender equality, increases the use of modern reversible female contraceptive methods like contraceptive pills, IUD, or female barrier. Also, higher socioeconomic status and gender equality are associated with higher male sterilization methods compared to its different societies. This conclusion can be due to higher levels of education, understanding, and communication between the partners. Also, modern reversible methods are more available to women in such societies. 

On the other hand, lower socioeconomic status, lower gender equality, lower occupation and education in females are inversely related to the use of female modern reversible contraceptive methods and are associated with higher rate of female sterilization compared to male reversible methods and male sterilization. This conclusion can be due to the lack of sufficient knowledge about the methods, lack of education, lack of the importance of women’s role in society which makes modern methods or how to use them unavailable, so women are burdened with permanent solutions like sterilization.


References
Dereuddre, R., Van de Velde, S., Bracke, P. (2016). Gender inequality and the ‘East-West’ divide in contraception: An analysis at the individual, the couple, and the country level. ScienceDirect, Social Science & Medicine 161 (2016) 1-12. Retrieved from https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.csusm.edu/science/article/pii/S027795361630258