Zambia Demographic and Health Survey 2001-2002 - Measure DHS

3.7.3 Attitudes toward Refusing SexThe extent of control women have over when and with whom they have sex has important implicationsfor demographic and health outcomes such as transmission of HIV and other sexually transmittedinfections. To measure women’s beliefs about sexual empowerment, respondents were asked whether awife is justified in refusing to have sex with her husband under four circumstances: she is tired or not inthe mood, she has recently given birth, she knows her husband has sex with other women, and she knowsher husband has a sexually transmitted disease.Table 3.16.1 presents data on how demographic and socio-economic background characteristicsaffect women’s attitudes on this issue. The table also shows how this indicator of women’s status varieswith the other two indicators, namely with women’s participation in decision-making and women’s attitudestoward wife beating. It is worth noting that this indicator is also a measure of empowerment: themore reasons to refuse having sex with their husband, the higher their empowerment in terms of the beliefin women’s sexual rights.Table 3.16.1 shows that slightly over half of women (53 percent) agree that husbands can be deniedsex for all the specified reasons. The degree of agreement, however, varies, with reasons of recentchildbirth and a husband who has a sexually transmitted infection (88 percent and 86 percent, respectively)being most widely accepted as reasons for refusing sexual relations. Least likely to agree with allof the reasons for refusing sex are younger women (45 percent), never-married women (48 percent),women with no children (47 percent), those who live in Central (42 percent) and Southern (42 percent)provinces, women with no education (48 percent), women who are employed but not for cash (50 percent)and those without a say in household decisions (48 percent). Women with more say in decision-makingare more likely to feel a women is justified in refusing sexual relations with her husband for all the specifiedreasons than women with no say at all (57 percent versus 48 percent). Similarly, women who believethat wife beating is not justified for any of the specified reasons are more likely to agree that women arejustified in refusing sex with their husbands for all of the reasons.Table 3.16.2 shows the percentage of men who believe that a wife is justified in refusing to havesex with her husband for specific reasons by background characteristics. The table shows that three infive men compared with one in two women (see Table 3.16.1) are of the view that a woman has a right torefuse to have sex with the husband for all the specified reasons. There are no marked variations betweenrural and urban areas.Characteristics of Respondents │ 49