S. AROOJ ET AL.
one quarter and those who put into decision of choosing life
partner were 11.5%. More than 5 0% women discu ssed with their
partner regarding use of contraceptives and the percentage of
women agreed on number of children was 44.2%. Women who
have freedom in selection of spouse are more likely to make
decisions regarding number of children. Adoptions of contracep-
tives were more likely to be associated more with older age and
higher education at marriage (Saima & Stephenson, 2011).
In Pakistan the region more than the religion plays an impor-
tant role in defining the autonomy of women. Autonomy of
women in decision making is positively associated with em-
ployment, number of living children and their ages. Women of
rural areas have relatively less autonomy in decision making.
Autonomy in decision making is related with education of
women. Interestingly women who are rich have less independ-
ence to make decisions about their health care. Women’s con-
dition was also unsatisfactory with respect to access and control
over economic r esources. Women who cou ld speak in househo ld
spending were 59% whereas 70.4% women were those who
could spend money in their homes by themselves, which means
the majority of the women . But in case of bu ying valuable things,
participation o f women were l imited to 16% i.e. those who could
buy small jewellery, and women who could buy gifts by their
own were 23.7%. Women who could own and have control on
their valuable things were 61.1% and those who could speak in
their dowry related decisions were 33.6%. 28.9% of women
could speak in husband’s home in different matters. Women
have little control over her savings by themselves (Jejeebhoy &
Shireen, 2001).
Increased autonomy of women in different aspects of life is
related with paid work. In many village, areas mobility of
women is restricted and women practice “purdah”. In the rural
areas, paid work is considered undesirable because it involves
working outside the home and therefore only the poorest
women engage in work as farm labourers, and agricultural la-
bourers are amongst the lowest paid group in the rural sector.
Poverty therefore is a major determinant that drives women into
low-wage work (Kazi & Shahnaz, 1999). Women had to do
household tasks along with paid work because their husbands
did not help them (Shaheed & Farida, 1981). Study conducted
in Multan revealed that 42.9% working women were those who
had to take permission from family for going outside. 36%
argued that their brothers got more privilege as compared to
them from their parents (Ali & Ishaque, 2010).
Addressing gender inequality issues Pakistan is far from
ideal however there are significant efforts made by social pro-
tection projects as it provided numerous benefits to women in
term of cash empowerment which has shown to improve deci-
sion making power of those women. They are more likely to
use reproductive health services, moreover household invest-
ments shift from transportation and food to medical care, edu-
cation, fuel, lighting, footwear and clothing.
Employment and education have always empowered women
and brought a positive impact on decision making, including
reducing the inequalities among men and women. One effective
method to do so is to incorporate the notion of empowerment in
school curricula. Attention should also be given to those
women who do not attend school, through non-formal educa-
tion. A curriculum for such programmes should be developed
with a clear policy framework to reduce differences in educa-
tion and employment between men and women (Mumtaz &
Salway, 2007). Employment of women is positively associated
with delayed marriage and child birth (Jensen, 2012). Women
of urban areas are more involved in working and they exercise
control over their earnings and in discussion of family planning
with their husbands than women of rural areas. More adoption
of family planning is associated with educational level of
women (Furuta, 2006). In structuring inequality between men
& women, economic dependency plays an important role. For
measuring household position, the important dimension is
women’s control over financial resources (Standing, 1991).
Married Women having paid work & education are more
likely to participate in decision making (Roth, 2001). Inde-
pendence of women in decision making is positively associated
with employment, education, number of living children and age.
Rural women with no education could not exercise autonomy in
decision making (Ahmmed & Chakraborty, 2012). Women with
completed higher education are considered for consent of mar-
riage (93.3%), enjoy higher purchasing power (46.7%), auto-
nomous in decisions regarding politics (86.7%) whereas illiter-
ate women have no say in marriage related decision, having no
purchasing power (0.0%) and political decision making (77.8%)
(Sanjoy, 2012). Contraceptive use is significantly associated
with decision autonomy than autonomy of movement (Saleem
& Bobak, 2005).
Methodology
A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted in district
Muzaffarabad. A sample of 500 married working women was
taken as per judgement of researcher because number of work-
ing women was limited (purposive sampling).
Data Collection
A close ended structured questionnaire was used to collect
data of participants regarding decision making power with re-
gard to birth control, independence in income spending and
freedom of expression. The level of the questionnaire was that
of layman understanding.
Inclusion & Exclusion Criteria
Present study excluded unmarried and non-working women
as primary interest of researcher was to find out changing role
of married working women.
Analysis
Data were entered and analy sed using SPSS software version
20. Both descriptive (percentage) and inferential (chi-square)
statistics were used for data analysis. Results on the variables
were presented with cross tabulation.
Measures
Independent variables which were chosen to represent deci-
sion making in above said areas were age, residence, education
(primary and secondary were recorded into secondary), job title,
job nature, family type, monthly income and expenses afforded
by women. Bivariate analysis was performed to check out the
association between variables.
Results
Table 1 describes that Working married women between age
Copyright © 2013 SciRe s.
166