Women's Autonomy and Fertility Behaviour

Autonomy defined as ‘the capacity to manipulate one's personal environment’ indicates the technical, social, and psychological ability to obtain information and to use it in decision making processes regarding one's private concerns and those of one's intimates’ (Dyson and Moore 1983, p. 45). The concept of autonomy is multidimensional, and includes information autonomy, decision-making autonomy, physical autonomy, emotional autonomy, and economic autonomy (Mason 1984; Mahadevan et al. 1989; Jejeebhoy 1996). Some studies have dealt with women's autonomy as an individual characteristic, while others have extended the scope of autonomy to include the capacity to act in the public realms of the labour market and social structure beyond one's household (Jejeebhoy 1996; Smith 1989; Morgan et al. 2002). It has been argued that women's autonomy has considerable impact on reproductive behaviour. Women with higher autonomy are more likely to be involved in their marriage arrangements leading to a later age at marriage, to acquire information regarding family planning methods and to use the methods during their reproductive life, and to control their fertility (Jejeebhoy 1996). McDonald (2000) postulates that the fall from high to moderate levels of fertility is associated with fundamental improvements in women's autonomy within the family setting. Evidence on the relationship between women's autonomy and fertility and the degree to which these two variables are interrelated is mixed.