Pakistan is 5th most populous country in the world and striving to achieve population equilibrium. Unfortunately, one in five women in Pakistan has not been using contraceptives and thus bearing unwanted pregnancies. Female’s participation in their own matters and benefits from social, economic, and political spheres has remained very low. Gender inequality is often cited as a barrier to improving women’s sexual and reproductive health outcomes, including contraceptive use. Pakistan is ranked at 148th place out of the 149 countries in Global Gender Gap Report 2018, which indicates very high gender inequality. Keeping in view this fact, we investigated the impact of women’s decision-making autonomy on contraceptive use among married women age 15–49 years in Pakistan. Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2018 data has been used for analysis by using descriptive statistics, association tests, and multiple logistic regression. Women’s participation in making four household decisions: access to health care; large household purchases; what to do with the husband earning and freedom to visit family and relatives have been used as women’s decision-making autonomy. The results indicated that women’s decision-making autonomy has been positively associated with contraceptive use. Women’s age, province of residence, education level, household wealth status, number of children, time since last sex, and awareness about family planning services have also been found statistically significantly associated with contraceptive use. The current study suggests integrating the interventions for women's decision-making autonomy into family planning programs. For this purpose, the development of community-based awareness programs for women’s decision-making autonomy and contraceptive use could be useful interventions to achieve population equilibrium.

巴基斯坦是世界第五大人口大国，并致力于实现人口平衡。不幸的是，巴基斯坦有五分之一的妇女没有使用避孕药具，因此不希望怀孕。女性对自己事务的参与以及从社会，经济和政治领域获得的利益仍然很低。性别不平等经常被认为是改善妇女的性健康和生殖健康结果（包括使用避孕药具）的障碍。在《 2018年全球性别差距报告》中，巴基斯坦在149个国家中排名第148位，这表明性别不平等现象非常严重。考虑到这一事实，我们调查了巴基斯坦15-49岁已婚妇女中妇女决策自主权对避孕药具使用的影响。巴基斯坦人口与健康调查2018数据已通过描述性统计，关联测试和多元Logistic回归进行了分析。妇女参与作出四个家庭决定：获得保健；大量家庭购买；与丈夫的收入和探望家人和亲戚的自由有关的事情已被用作妇女的决策自主权。结果表明，妇女的决策自主权与使用避孕药具正相关。在统计上还发现，妇女的年龄，居住的省份，受教育的程度，家庭的财富状况，孩子的数量，自上次性行为以来的时间以及对计划生育服务的了解与避孕方法的使用显着相关。当前的研究建议将针对妇女的干预措施整合 将决策自主权纳入计划生育计划。为此目的，制定基于社区的提高妇女决策自主权和避孕手段的意识方案，可能是实现人口均衡的有益干预措施。