Promoting gender equity by expanding family planning choice through fertility awareness-based methods: Experiences from Guatemala, Peru, and India

Promoting gender equity is one of the Millennium Development Goals, a cornerstone of which is women's ability to control their own fertility. Data from three studies were examined to determine if integrating the Standard Days Method (SDM), a fertility-awareness based family planning method, into the method mix promotes gender equity. A Guatemala study followed SDM users for seven cycles. Studies in India and Peru examined the impact of integrating the SDM into existing services on a large scale. Our indicators for gender equity were Pulerwitz scales from sets of questions about respondents' perceptions of communication with their partners, their right to refuse sexual activity, their partners' right to beat them, and decision-making within the household. In Guatemala we found an increase between admission and exit interviews in the communication and right-to-avoid-sex scores and a decrease in the decision-making score. In community surveys in India and Peru scores improved somewhat in the control area, improved more in the intervention area, and even more among women who had heard of the SDM. For example, the right-to-refuse-sex score in India increased from 3.83 to 4.23 in the control area; from 3.66 to 4.77 in the intervention area; but to 4.88 for women who heard of the method and 5.00 for women who used it. These results demonstrate that offering the SDM may promote gender equity through improvements in these indicators even at the community level, where couples not using the method may be exposed to IEC messages.