Domestic Violence and Contraceptive Use among Currently Married Women in Kenya

This paper seeks to analyse the influence of domestic violence on contraceptive use among currently married women while controlling for other factors that have been found to be related to cases of domestic violence. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses will be done on 2008/09 Kenya demographic and health survey women data. Preliminary results show that slapping, pushing, shaking or throwing an object to women are the common ways of physical domestic violence practiced in Kenya. The finding that majority of the currently married women using modern contraception have never been abused points to the fact that domestic violence carry implications on someone’s reproductive behaviour. Domestic violence also tend to vary with region, the study having found greater proportions of currently married women in Nyanza (60 percent) and Rift Valley (48 percent) reporting having physically violated than in Nairobi (16 percent). The proportion of women reporting having experienced domestic violence showed a steady increase with increase in the number of living children. Addressing domestic violence will yield to improved reproductive health through increased contraceptive use and reduced unwanted and unintended pregnancies.