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Exploring young women’s reproductive decision-making, agency and social norms in South African informal settlements

This paper explores reproductive decision-making among young women in South Africa’s informal settlements and considers whether and how agency and social norm theory inform their decisions. Understanding whether, when and how young women make decisions about conception and motherhood is critical for...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Willan, Samantha, Gibbs, Andrew, Petersen, Inge, Jewkes, Rachel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7190118/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32348303
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231181
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author Willan, Samantha
Gibbs, Andrew
Petersen, Inge
Jewkes, Rachel
author_facet Willan, Samantha
Gibbs, Andrew
Petersen, Inge
Jewkes, Rachel
author_sort Willan, Samantha
collection PubMed
description This paper explores reproductive decision-making among young women in South Africa’s informal settlements and considers whether and how agency and social norm theory inform their decisions. Understanding whether, when and how young women make decisions about conception and motherhood is critical for supporting women to avoid unplanned, early motherhood. Qualitative data were collected from 15 young women in informal settlements in eThekwini, South Africa at three time points over 18 months, using in-depth interviews, participant observation and photovoice, and were analysed inductively. When the young women were teenagers and into their early twenties, and had not yet had a child, most paid little attention to whether or not they conceived. This shifted as they grew older and/or after having a first child, at which point many of the women began to express, and sometimes act upon, a greater desire to control whether and when they conceived and delay further pregnancies. At different times in their lives, both social norms and reproductive agency, specifically ‘distributed agency’ played significant roles in influencing their reproductive decision-making. Social norms held the most influence when they were teenagers and experiencing normative pressures to have a baby while young. As they grew older and/or had a first child they began to assert some agentic control around their reproduction. We therefore recommend that in order to improve the effectiveness of services and interventions supporting young women to delay unplanned pregnancies, programmers, researchers and policy makers must develop a better understanding of the role of social norms and agency at different stages of women’s lives.
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spelling pubmed-71901182020-05-06 Exploring young women’s reproductive decision-making, agency and social norms in South African informal settlements Willan, Samantha Gibbs, Andrew Petersen, Inge Jewkes, Rachel PLoS One Research Article This paper explores reproductive decision-making among young women in South Africa’s informal settlements and considers whether and how agency and social norm theory inform their decisions. Understanding whether, when and how young women make decisions about conception and motherhood is critical for supporting women to avoid unplanned, early motherhood. Qualitative data were collected from 15 young women in informal settlements in eThekwini, South Africa at three time points over 18 months, using in-depth interviews, participant observation and photovoice, and were analysed inductively. When the young women were teenagers and into their early twenties, and had not yet had a child, most paid little attention to whether or not they conceived. This shifted as they grew older and/or after having a first child, at which point many of the women began to express, and sometimes act upon, a greater desire to control whether and when they conceived and delay further pregnancies. At different times in their lives, both social norms and reproductive agency, specifically ‘distributed agency’ played significant roles in influencing their reproductive decision-making. Social norms held the most influence when they were teenagers and experiencing normative pressures to have a baby while young. As they grew older and/or had a first child they began to assert some agentic control around their reproduction. We therefore recommend that in order to improve the effectiveness of services and interventions supporting young women to delay unplanned pregnancies, programmers, researchers and policy makers must develop a better understanding of the role of social norms and agency at different stages of women’s lives. Public Library of Science 2020-04-29 /pmc/articles/PMC7190118/ /pubmed/32348303 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231181 Text en © 2020 Willan et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Willan, Samantha
Gibbs, Andrew
Petersen, Inge
Jewkes, Rachel
Exploring young women’s reproductive decision-making, agency and social norms in South African informal settlements
title Exploring young women’s reproductive decision-making, agency and social norms in South African informal settlements
title_full Exploring young women’s reproductive decision-making, agency and social norms in South African informal settlements
title_fullStr Exploring young women’s reproductive decision-making, agency and social norms in South African informal settlements
title_full_unstemmed Exploring young women’s reproductive decision-making, agency and social norms in South African informal settlements
title_short Exploring young women’s reproductive decision-making, agency and social norms in South African informal settlements
title_sort exploring young women’s reproductive decision-making, agency and social norms in south african informal settlements
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7190118/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32348303
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231181
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