Why Does Women's Empowerment In One Generation Not Lead To Later Marriage and Childbearing In The Next?: Qualitative Findings from Bangladesh

• Published in: Journal of comparative family studies 2011-04, Vol.42 (2), p.253-265
• Main Authors: Schuler, Sidney Ruth, Rottach, Elisabeth
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescents; Age at marriage; Bangladesh; Birth; Children; Daughters; Dowries; Empowerment; Family; Females; Husbands; Intergenerational relations; Marriage; Mothers; Parenthood; Parents; Personal empowerment; Poverty; Social development; Social dynamics; Sociocultural Factors; Sons; Triads; Women's status; Womens empowerment; Womens Roles
• ISSN: 0047-2328; 1929-9850
• DOI: 10.3138/jcfs.42.2.253

This study uses qualitative data to explore the socio-cultural processes through which women influence two proximate determinants of health and well-being-age at marriage and age at initiation of childbearing-in the next generation, and to investigate social processes that may be undermining women's empowerment and its effects across generations. Open-ended, in-depth interviews were conducted with triads of women-young married women, their mothers, and their mothers-in-law-with one of the senior women in each triad having been identified as comparatively empowered based on a set of indicators measured in a prior survey. The findings suggest the cultural meanings and social dynamics of marriage in the context of poverty and vulnerability to economic crisis are persistent constraints to later marriage and childbearing even in families of empowered women who are aware of the risks and disadvantages of early marriage and childbearing. No substantial differences were found between empowered versus unempowered women and their families in the ways that decisions about the timing of marriage and childbearing were made, nor, in general, between mothers versus mothers-in-law. Cette etude se sert des donnes qualitatives afin d'explorer les processus socio-culturels auxquels les femmes influent deux aspects de la sante et du bien-etre, a l'age de marriage et a l'age de maternite, de la prochaine generation, et d'examiner les phenomenes qui peuvent annuler au fils des annees l'autonomie des femmes et son influence a travers des generations. Des entretiens detailles et a duree indetermines ont ete faits avec des triades des femmes-jeunes femmes maniees, leurs meres aussi bien que leurs belles-meres-et la femme la plus agee de chaque triade etant identifiee comme autonome comparativement selon un ensemble de resultats deja etablis dans une etude precedante. Les resultats suggerent que les significations culturelles et les dynamiques sociales du mariage dans le contexte de la pauvrete et de la vulnerabilite devant la crise economique font en sorte que les femmes sont confrontees des barrieres et des contraintes persistantes en ce qui concerne l'avenir du mariage et de l'accouchement dans leurs vies meme dans les familles des femmes autonomes qui sont conaissantes des risques et des desavantages du mariage premature aussi bien que les femmes non-autonomes et leurs familles, concernant la facon dans laquelle on regarde le mariage et l'accouchement. Este estudio usa datos qu