More women decide how earnings must be expended — Survey
Ten per cent of married women or cohabiting women aged between 15 and 49 earn more than their husbands or partners, while two out of three married women within the same age group determine how their earnings should be used.
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These came to light at the dissemination of the 2022 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey report on women’s empowerment, domestic violence, young people's experience of first sex, marriage and sexuality in Accra last Tuesday.
A Principal Statistician of the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), Gloria Akoto-Bamfo, who made the findings known in a presentation, described the 10 per cent of women earning more than their husbands or partners as encouraging, saying it offered hope to women's empowerment.
Survey
The GDHS is a population-level survey designed to monitor and assess progress in the utilisation and management of healthcare services to furnish policymakers and planners with information to facilitate well-informed decision-making within the various units in the healthcare sector.
The 2022 GDHS data was obtained from a nationally representative sample of 18,540 households distributed across all 16 administrative regions and 261 districts of the country.
In all, 17,933 households were interviewed, made up of 15,014 women - aged 15 to 49, and 7,044 men, aged 15 to 59.
On sexuality, domestic violence and women empowerment, the survey identified that more than half, 56.0 per cent of married women aged 15 to 49, made specific decisions to seek health care, major household purchases and also visit family and relatives.
Also, 72.0 per cent of the women surveyed were able to say no to their husbands or partners if they did not want to have sexual intercourse, while 70.0 per cent were able to ask their husbands or partners to use condoms.
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Similarly, 71.0 per cent of the women said they would refuse to have sexual intercourse with their husbands or partners if they knew they had sex with other women, while 85.0 per cent said they would ask their partners to use condom if they had a sexually transmitted infection.
In terms of ownership of assets, more men owned assets than women.
For instance, 23.3 per cent of men or jointly, owned houses, as against 15.8 per cent for women.
For land ownership, 24.7 per cent of men owned land alone or jointly, while for women, it was 12.7 per cent.
A similar trend followed of more men owning assets such as mobile phones, smart phones and bank accounts than women.
Violence
Ms Akoto-Bamfo said the report further identified that both men and women had a common view that a husband was justified in hitting his wife or partner if she neglected their children, and some of the women were in favour of that assertion.
On sexual, physical and emotional violence, she said sexual violence increased by 1.1 percentage points between 2008 and 2022 while emotional and physical violence declined by 4.1 and 7.5 percentage points respectively.
It identified that sexual violence which recorded 7.6 per cent was highest among younger females aged 15 to 19, while emotional violence, which recorded 27.8 per cent was highest among older females between 40 to 49 years.
“About one-tenth of the women who experienced some form of physical violence ended up with deep wounds, broken bones and serious injuries,” Ms Akoto-Bamfo, added.
Strengthening of institutions
A senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology of the University Ghana, Dr Doris Boateng, said institutions such as the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) needed to be strengthened and its staff empowered through training to enable them to discharge their duties perfectly.
The Deputy Government Statistician, Dr Faustina Frempong-Ainguah, said the next dissemination exercise would be in the various regions which had been divided into six zones for that purpose.