EXPLORE OUR WORK
Adolescence | HIV and AIDS | Food Security & Nutrition | Economic Development | Reproductive Health | Violence Against Women | Women's Right
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
Research | Insight | Action & Advocacy | Projects
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Access to reproductive health options and services is crucial to women's full empowerment. ICRW's work has long provided evidence that these needs cannot be successfully addressed without improving the social and economic context of women's lives.
The gender roles of men and women affect women's and girls' access to reproductive health information and services. Gendered power differentials often determine whether women are fully engaged in decisions about childbearing, contraceptive use and reproduction.
Research
ICRW has found significant differences in the reproductive health needs of adolescent girls compared to women and has explored ways to increase adolescent girls' access to reproductive health information and services.
ICRW is currently examining linkages among reproductive health and nutrition, child marriage, domestic violence, fistula and development outcomes, such as reducing poverty. Through this groundbreaking research, ICRW is building evidence on how improved reproductive health options and fertility reductions affect women's empowerment and development outcomes.
Insight
We now know that there is a clear, largely unfilled desire among women to control their fertility — evidence that was drawn from surveying thousands of women. Women need contraceptive options and increased communication within households so that men understand their partners' preferences and desires when it comes to pregnancy prevention, contraception, and pre- and ante-natal care.
Gendered misconceptions, such as the idea that prenatal care is a woman's domain, often alienate men from full participation in the reproductive health of their wives. For these reasons, ICRW's research on women's reproductive health issues often includes men, recognizing that husbands, in-laws and other community members play an integral role in determining a woman's ability to access quality reproductive health care.
Action & Advocacy
ICRW works with policy-makers in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the United States to help shape discussions of reproductive health. Our work has resulted in state-level policy changes in India that will lead to better reproductive health for women and girls. We also worked with parliamentarians from several sub-Saharan African countries to increase awareness of and funding for women's reproductive health. Our U.S.-based advocacy efforts have resulted in the introduction of legislation that could help curb child marriage in the developing world.