Women's engagement in the decision to use contraception, an indicator captured in the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), is frequently used to assess women's reproductive agency. In 2014, DHS added a corollary question to the women's questionnaire on decision-making not to use contraception. Study authors hypothesize that women's engagement in decision-making not to use contraception is also indicative of reproductive agency. Analyzing DHS microdata from 30 countries collected between 2015 and 2020 (n = 292,141), this country-level study examines data quality in terms of missingness of data (t-tests), indicator utility in terms of response pattern variability (descriptive statistics), and construct validity in terms of associations between engagement in the decision not to use contraception and engagement in household decision-making (multivariable linear regression). Findings indicate the measure is of good quality, provides nuanced insight, and has construct validity. Importantly, the new measure deepens our understanding of women's reproductive agency.

中文翻译：

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不使用避孕药具的决定是生殖机构的指标吗？

妇女参与避孕措施的决定是人口与健康调查 (DHS) 中的一项指标，经常被用来评估妇女的生育能力。2014 年，国土安全部在关于不使用避孕措施的决策的女性问卷中增加了一个推论问题。研究作者假设，女性参与不使用避孕措施的决策也表明了生殖能力。这项国家级研究分析了 2015 年至 2020 年间从 30 个国家/地区收集的 DHS 微数据 ( n = 292,141)，从数据缺失的角度检查了数据质量 ( t-测试），根据响应模式可变性（描述性统计）的指标效用，以及根据参与决定不使用避孕药具和参与家庭决策之间的关联构建有效性（多变量线性回归）。调查结果表明该措施质量好，提供了细微的洞察力，并且具有结构有效性。重要的是，新措施加深了我们对女性生殖机构的理解。