Disparity in contraceptive use in Indonesia: Do place, gender and decision making matter?

The contraceptive use is not only the family planning program but also the strategy to increase women empowerment. Previous studies in Indonesia mostly focused on male participation in family planning, but litle is known about the role of women in decision making for family planning. Therefore, this paper aims to explore disparity in contraceptive use among Indonesian regions by exploring women’s role.
This paper used the 2007 Indonesian Demographic and Health Survey. The sample included 18,183 currently married women aged 15-49 years old. The contraceptive use refers to as using the modern method. The crucial independent variable was combination of gender and decision making. Other control variables were characteristics of women, characteristic of husbands, number of children, and residences. The descriptive statistics, the geographic information system application and logistic regression were applied.
It was found that there was a disparity in contraceptive use between areas and women decision making played an important role in increasing contraceptive use. In addition other variables could help to increase the use of contraception.
The results from this study suggested that to increase women empowerment would reduce disparity in contraception across the country.