Public Choices, Private Decisions: Sexual and Reproductive Health ...

Section 3: The impact of ensuring universal access to SRH and rights on achieving each of the MDGs
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apart. Reducing family size by six children could lead to a gain in the time
a woman is potentially able to be in the labor force. Participating actively
in community life, too, is more difficult for a woman who does not have
reproductive choice.
At a societal level, control over one’s reproductive life may lead to changes
in traditional gender-based roles, where women are largely responsible for
domestic work and childrearing. Given that such traditional roles tend to
place women in less powerful roles than men, the inability of a woman to
control her reproduction may perpetuate female disempowerment at a societal
level, leaving her less able to participate in the decisions that impact her
life (UN Millennium Project 2005d).
Many experts attribute the significant shift in gender roles in the rich
countries during the second part of the 20th century to the advent of oral contraceptives
and their widespread adoption by women in the 1960s (Oppenheim
Mason 1994). Probably one of the most dramatic transformations in
development over the past 30 years has been women’s increasing role in the
labor force, and this shift reflects fundamental changes in women’s work and
family roles. According to the National Research Council and Institute of
Medicine (2005), these changes have been greatly catalyzed by women’s ability
to limit their fertility and to control the timing and spacing of their children.
And this has led to an increased ability of women to shape their careers
over their lifecycle. Women’s educational opportunities, too, are limited if
they are unable to control their fertility, as discussed under Goal 2. Access to
credit and training can also enable women to play an increased role in their
community when combined with access to family planning (box 3.3).
Box 3.3
Improving family
economies with
microcredit
and access to
family planning
Source: Adapted from
UNFPA 2005c
In Dong Loi, a small farming community in the uplands of northern Viet Nam, an initiative
combining microcredit and reproductive health services, established by the Viet Nam
Women’s Union with UNFPA support, is demonstrating that women’s leadership can help
poor families rise out of poverty.
The members of a women’s cooperative have seen their household incomes double in
two years, largely through the breeding and sale of livestock purchased with loans. Extra
funds allow participants to keep their children in school, buy supplies such as fertilizers
and seeds, and even purchase computers or other consumer goods. “Because of this
project, the economy of the entire village has improved,” says group leader Dinh Thi Nga.
“Another reason for our success is that nearly every woman in my group is practicing family
planning.” The project has taught Dong Loi two important things: “First, women can
play important roles in community development if given the chance, and second, in order
to do that we need access to credit and training as well as to reproductive health and
family planning services. The two are intimately linked to economic development,” Nga
adds. Microcredit is not sufficient by itself but can provide an opening for poor women,
leading to greater resources and autonomy and spurring development of larger additional
finance sources.