Do Women Gain Autonomy Through Marriage? Evidence from Rural Malawi

Throughout their life, women go through different stages where their autonomy is challenged. Some develop strategies to free themselves from a controlling family member and eventually, if married, from their partner. Thus, navigating through different unions may bring some women to gain more confidence in themselves and in return to have greater control of their own life. However, the relationship between the marital paths and women's perceived autonomy remains unclear. Our main goal is to evaluate the extent to which the various marital trajectories used by women in sub-Saharan Africa affect their perception of autonomy using the Malawi Diffusion and Ideational Change Project. To achieve our goal, we use sequential analysis to illustrate women's marital paths. Subsequently, we use similarly grouped marital trajectories as our main independent variable. Autonomy, our dependent variable, is represented by a series of questions on different dimensions commonly used in the literature. We use ordered logistic regression models to predict autonomy and control for covariates shown to have some effects on women's empowerment. We expect that ever-divorced women will be more likely to have higher autonomy particularly for the dimensions of divorce, decision-making and negotiation of safer sex.