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Gender Checklist: health
Gender issues in family planning
Key questions
- Among couples or extended families, who makes
fertility decisions?
- Are there sex-based differences in knowledge
and attitudes regarding fertility decisions?
- What traditional methods, if any, do local women/
men use to control fertility?
- Is the use of contraceptives
legal in the country? Do
women have access to contraceptives
regardless of
age, marital status, and number
of children? Do women
require the permission of
males to obtain contraceptives
or an abortion? What is
the cost of contraceptives?
How accessible are contraceptives
to women and men?
- What is the family planning
acceptance rate in the target
population? What is the percentage
of new acceptors
each year? Which methods
are most widely accepted?
- Are there information/education programs on
family planning? Who offers them in the project
area NGOs and/or public sector programs? Are
they adapted for low literacy populations? Do
the programs target women or men, or both
genders? Are the female and male users aware
of the pros and cons of each method?
- How acceptable are the family
planning messages to women? to
men? Are the messages culturally
appropriate?
- Does family planning emphasize
sterilization? Are there social or
cultural problems associated with
sterilization for women or men?
- Are there “quality of care” issues
associated with the promotion of
family planning? How do these af-fect
women and men?
- How common is infertility? Which main groups
suffer from infertility? What are the main causes
and effects?
- How common is abortion (legal or nonlegal)? Is
it legal? Which groups are primarily concerned?
What are the effects on women’s health?
- Is sonar scanning or amniocentesis used in association
with abortion for the sexual selection
of offspring?
- What are the cultural and social attitudes toward
unmarried mothers? toward children classified
as “illegitimate”?
Key strategies
- Design separate gender appropriate communication
strategies for women and men.
- Design messages about development and population
strategies, health, and fertility that are acceptable
to both women and men.
- Develop curriculum guidelines and instruction
materials for school programs on nutrition, hygiene,
and family planning for boys and girls.
Nutrition and reproductive health education for adolescent girls, in particular, will reduce maternal
risk factors when they grow up.
- Use the mass media to provide follow-up information
on project activities for nutrition, health,
and family planning that will reach and be interesting
to women.
- Involve women’s organizations, women’s groups
or clubs, schools, unions, neighborhood associations,
cooperatives, etc., to reach as many women
in the project area as possible.
- Initiate information and education campaigns to
promote the idea that men and women share equal
responsibility for health in the family.
- Design communication strategies that target men
with messages about birth spacing, family health,
and family planning.
- Promote the responsibility of men as husbands
and fathers in family planning and family health,
through focus group discussions with health and
family planning workers, community and religious
leaders, NGOs, etc.
- Introduce special services for men, such as “exclusive”
clinic hours and husbands’ day at the clinic.
- Consider networking with NGOs to promote men’s
involvement in reproductive health.
- Assist women and men, in a gender-sensitive and
culturally sensitive manner, in learning about their
reproductive systems and functions, and obtaining
accurate information about the different techniques,
advantages, and disadvantages of contraception.
Provide alternative means of contraception
to women and men.
- Ensure that health practitioners are assisted in
monitoring any possible side effects and problems
arising from the use of contraceptives.
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