Measure of the Gender Norms Regarding Violence against Women and their Influences on Women Autonomy in Rural Africa: A Multi-country Analysis

The autonomy of the woman emerges as a central and separate dimension to consider in understanding health behavior. In fact, several authors have highlighted its influence on the use of maternal health care in developing countries. However, if the individual autonomy is relevant, it nevertheless deserves to be placed and analyzed within the social context in which the woman lives. Not only the social context and their norms have a direct influence on the use of care, but in addition, it shapes and structures the women autonomy. Using DHS data from Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, we measure the norms related to violence against women and assess their impact on women autonomy. Confirmatory Factor Analysis show a good model fits for the measure of the latent variable related to violence against women (Cronbach's alpha > 0.8; RMSEA <0.04 and CFI>=0.96). In addition, controlling for women attitudes toward wife beating, we found that women who live in area where acceptance of wife beating is high are more likely to be of low autonomy.