270042 Measurement of decision making power: Exploring intimate partner violence (IPV) in India

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Archana More Sharma, PhD , Department of Health Sciences, California State University Dominguez Hills, Carson, CA
Background: There is no debate that decision making ability is critical to women's empowerment. Yet its measurement and definition presents great methodological challenges. Various decision making measures often produce differing, if not contradictory, analytical results. Purpose: To explore the variations in measurement, this study describes different ways the literature operationalizes women's decision making ability within the context of empowerment. Methods: Using data from the Indian National Family Health Survey (2005-06), five measures of decision making perceptions among married couples are considered: (1) a feminist approach examining individual gendered domains of decision making (i.e. financial, childcare, household purchases, etc.); (2) a couple's approach that describes women's participation in decision making (i.e. joint decision making); (3) a summative score which signifies women's level of participation in decision making (from low to high); (4) a measure examining decision making within the dyadic relationship to reflect decision making dominance (i.e. egalitarian, male-dominant, or female-dominant relationships); and (5) three separate indices that quantify the sole decisions made by each spouse and those made jointly; this method focuses on the spousal dynamics individually, as well as within the dyad. Binary logistic regressions are performed with each decision making measure predicting women's experience with IPV. Results: Regressions of the five decision making measures produced inconsistent findings in their relationships with IPV. Several similarities and differences were observed. Conclusions: Before selecting measures of decision making power for studies exploring women's empowerment, a thorough review of the methodological, theoretical and conceptual implications of the study must be considered.

Learning Areas:
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
1. Identify at least 3 ways empowerment literature measures women’s decision making ability. 2. Explain the importance of investigating the theoretical and conceptual implications in selecting a decision making measure for studies involving women’s empowerment.

Keywords: Decision-Making, Methodology

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: The study was part of my doctoral dissertation work. I performed a detailed analysis of methodology and measurement of this topic. I currently teach Research Methodology for undergraduate students and continue to explore these issues.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.