Demographic

There are small differences by background characteristics in the proportion of men who agreewith all of the reasons for a wife to refuse sex. However, unemployed men and men who are employedbut receive no cash payment, better educated men, and men who are in the wealthiest households aremore likely to agree with all of the reasons for refusing sex.16.5 WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT INDICATORSThe three sets of empowerment indicators, namely women’s participation in making householddecisions, their attitude toward wife beating, and their attitude toward a wife’s right to refuse sexualintercourse with her husband/partner, can be summarized into three separate indices. The first indexshows the number of decisions (see Table 16.4 for the list of decisions) in which women participate aloneor jointly with their husband/partner. This index ranges in value from 0 to 4 and is positively related towomen’s empowerment. It reflects the degree of decisionmaking control that women are able to exercisein areas that affect their own lives and environments.The second index, which ranges in value from 0 to 6, is the total number of reasons (see Table16.6.1 for the list of reasons) for which the respondent feels that a husband is justified in beating his wife.A lower score on this indicator is interpreted as reflecting a greater sense of entitlement and self-esteemand a higher status of women.The final index, which ranges in value from 0 to 5, is the number of circumstances (see Table16.7.1 for the list of the circumstances) in which the respondent feels that a woman is justified in refusingsexual intercourse with her husband or partner. This indicator reflects perceptions of sexual roles andwomen’s rights over their bodies and relates positively to women’s sense of self and empowerment.Table 16.8 shows how these three indicators relate to each other. In general, the expectation isthat women who participate in making household decisions are also more likely to have egalitarian genderbeliefs. Greater decisionmaking participation is normally associated with disapproval of wife beating andvice versa. Data in Table 16.8 show that women who participate in 3-4 decisions are more likely thanother women to disagree with wife beating and to agree with the woman’s right to refuse sex with herhusband.The second panel in Table 16.8 shows that participation in making household decisions declinesas the number of justifications for wife beating increases. In general, disapproval of wife beating isassociated with agreement of a woman’s right to refuse sex with her husband.Decisionmaking participation is also usually associated with agreement that there is nojustification for wife beating and that a wife can refuse sex with her husband. It is surprising, however,that almost the same percentage of women participate in all four decisions (40 percent) as agree that awoman may refuse to have sex with her husband for one or more reasons (37 percent and lower). Themajority of women are against wife beating regardless of their stand on a woman’s right to refuse sexwith her husband.256 | Women’s Empowerment and Demographic and Health Outcomes