[Study on the perception of gender role and decision-making regarding family affairs among married women and its impact on the utilization of perinatal care].
OBJECTIVE
To understand the perception on roles of gender and decision-making regarding family affairs among married women and its impact on the utilization of perinatal care.


METHODS
Clustering sampling was conducted to select 1227 married women with at least a child aged from 0 to 7 years old, from Hebei, Hubei and Sichuan provinces. All women were interviewed using a uniform questionnaire during Nov.-Dec. 2004.


RESULTS
The overall proportion of women who had relatively poor perception of gender role was 65.1%. 59.3% of the women agreed that "husband's health is more important than wife's in the family" versus 39.7% of interviewed women agreed that "man is more suitable for leadership than woman". In 46.2% of the families, wife and husband shared the responsibility of decision making on family affairs. In 16.2% of the families women played a decisive role, while 67.1% of interviewed women had to get the approval of her husband when spending money on daily necessities. When there were different opinions between the couples, husband usually made the final decision in 20.5% of all the families versus 17.4% of families where wife made the final decision. In total,the proportion of women who had somehow rights on family affairs was 64.1%. The coverage rate of antenatal care was 91.0%, and 65.3% women who received antenatal care got the first antenatal visit during the first trimester and the proportion of women who had at least five antenatal visits was 39.7%. The institutional delivery was 59.3% among all the women. Perception of gender role was not a predictor for antenatal care utilization, but it was predictive of institutional delivery. Education was quite a significant predictor on perinatal care utilization.


CONCLUSIONS
Efforts should be strengthened to improve women's awareness and to increase their perception on gender role in the families so that more women could achieve quality perinatal care.
Zhao
Feng-Min
FM
National Centre for Women and Children's Health, Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 100013, China.
Guo
Su-Feng
SF
Wang
Lin-Hong
LH
Zhang
Tong
T
Wu
Jiu-Ling
JL
Du
Yu-Kai
YK
Fang
Wei-Min
WM
D000328:Adult; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002681:China; D003657:Decision Making; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage; D018743:Perinatal Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*