The advent of family planning as a social norm in Bangladesh: women’s experiences

References

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• One of the inherent difficulties in asking questions about something as sensitive as power relations within the family, particularly if they are changing, is that direct questions often elicit normative responses. Taking this into account, one of our strategies was to put the most direct questions about power relations at the end of the interview, so that the respondent might assume that they were being asked as a follow-up to any specific accounts of events that the respondent might have provided in replying to earlier questions. We also mixed general with specific questions. This was to provide the ‘safer’ option of speaking in general terms for respondents who felt threatened by the topic of spousal conflict over family planning, while also encouraging respondents who might be inclined to talk specifically about themselves. In many cases, however, the interviewers failed to ask the final two questions, either because they felt that the respondents would perceive them as threatening or redundant, or because the interview had gone on for a long time and the respondent was becoming impatient. In some cases also, the questions were asked but the respondent was unwilling to answer.
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• The interviewers reviewed all the transcripts and listed all nontraditional activities and behaviour observed which may be considered signs of innovative behaviour or empowerment. The lists included activities such as work outside of the home, use of health services and other interactions in the public sphere, control over resources, decisions within the family, and various instances in which women took unusual initiatives in trying to solve problems or improve their families’ futures. The researchers also noted whether or not the woman had used or was currently using a method of contraception, who initiated this, and when this was initiated in relation to other events on the list. The pair of researchers from each village were asked to think about whether, and how, use of contraception was related to the other activities on the list, and to present to the rest of the group their reasons for arguing whether or not family planning was or was not related to other non-traditional or empowered behaviours in the case of each of the women interviewed. In subsequent trips to the villages they were asked to further explore the possible connections that they had identified between reproductive and other aspects of empowerment.
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