WUNRN
Institute for Reproductive Health -
IRH
SOCIAL NETWORKS' INFLUENCE ON FAMILY
PLANNING - MALI RESEARCH
A group of women participates in
Tékponon Jikuagou Project focus group discussions. [Photo Credit: Heather
Buesseler]
March 19, 2014 | Sarah Burgess, IRH Program Officer for
Research
Think about all the people you trust for
advice, love, and support. Then imagine the people that those people trust, and
the people that those people trust, and so forth. You’re probably left
imagining a complicated, tangled web of social connections.
In
rural sub-Saharan
Understanding
social networks
Our
research began with a social network census in two villages in
You’re
invited to take a deep dive into our recently published report on these
findings. Using Network Analysis for
Social Change: Breaking through Barriers of Unmet Need for Family Planning in
Mali analyzes how social networks have impacted
gender and family planning use in two rural villages in
Here
are a few highlights:
·
Family/friends = most trusted for family
planning information. Research
shows that when seeking information about family planning, respondents turn
first to family and friends. Although participants did see health workers as
trusted sources, they do not necessarily seek them out first when they have
questions about family planning methods.
·
Fewer connections means greater risk for
family planning unmet need. Take
a look at the above network maps. See those outlying clusters of people who
aren’t linked to the greater social networks? These people are most at risk for
unmet need, in part because they are less likely to be exposed to new ideas
about fertility and family planning.
·
Healthy Timing and Spacing v. Family Planning Methods –
language matters. People
can be supportive of healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies but not
necessarily approve of family planning method use. According to this
research, the term family planning is associated with limiting births.
Many people see limiting births as a separate concept from spacing births;
where the latter is generally socially acceptable, the former is not.
·
Gender drives social networks. Gendered power relations kept women from
obtaining or using a method, even if they were motivated to do so. A lack of
communication often led to incorrect assumptions: women and men believed their
partner was opposed family planning or wanted more children than was actually
the case.
·
Women and men have
different social networks. In both villages, men were more connected than women. While men tend to
discuss fertility, child spacing and family planning one-on-one with friends of
the same generation or in small peer groups, they rarely discuss these topics
with their family or in formal group settings. Women, on the other hand, talk
frequently with female family members, including mothers, mothers-in-law and
sisters-in-law. Women are also more likely to discuss and debate ideas in
formal group settings.
In
2012, the Tékponon Jikuagou Project relocated to
Here
are a few of the top survey findings:
·
Unrecognized need for family planning. Many participants perceived that they
had met need or no need for family planning for a variety of reasons, but were
in fact at risk of becoming pregnant–especially during the postpartum period.
·
Social networks reinforce messages. Whether positive or negative, social
networks reinforce whatever messages are circulating in the community. Positive
messages among family planning users are strengthened through conversations
with other users, but negative attitudes are reinforced among those with unmet
need.
·
Social barriers to family planning are
significant. According to
the baseline survey conducted in 2013 by Tékponon Jikuagou in the Mono-Couffo
Department of Benin, 36% of women reported that it is not acceptable to talk
about family planning in public. Gender norms often underlie negative attitudes
towards family planning—for example, 8% of women and 17% of men believe that
women who use family planning are promiscuous.
·
Unmet need: Definitions matter. According to the baseline survey, only
13% of women believe they need a family planning method (and therefore would
seek services). However, if we take a closer look at the data, parsing the
results by perceived (by the woman herself) and actual
(biological risk of pregnancy) unmet need, the data tell a different story.
This view of the data suggests that over half of women (53.3%) who do not wish
to become pregnant are at risk of pregnancy and need family planning.