Economic empowerment is the ability to make and act on decisions that involve the control over and allocation of financial resources. Women’s influence over financial decisions is associated with increased use of preventive health services by children and women, including use of modern contraceptive methods.
Thus, interventions that aim to increase the economic power of women and girls may improve reproductive health behaviors, including sustained use of modern contraception, particularly when linked with investments that directly address reproductive health and family planning and/or gender norms.
This brief summarizes the current evidence on interventions used by family planning programs that sought to improve women’s or girls’ economic empowerment and that measured key family planning outcomes.
