Abstract:
The ability of women to be final decision makers at home to a large extent is dependent on
their background characteristics. The aim of this paper is to ascertain who these
women are. Data
from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey was used to analyze women’s decision
-
making
at home. The five household decision-
making variables identified include who decides
how to spend respondent’s earnings and the person who usually decides on respondent’s health
care. The rest are the person who usually decides on large household purchases, person who
usually decides on visits to family or relatives and person who usually decides on what to do with
money husband earns.
Binomial logistic regression results show that generally, region
of
residence, educational attainment,
and wealth index were likely to influence a woman’s ability to
have the final say in household decision-
making. For women to be the final decision makers at
home,
they must be educated to the highest possible level. Their engagement with their partners
on matters relating to household decisions will then be from better
-informed
positions.
The long
-
run effect of this is th
at it will move their decision
-making process beyond the confines of
households to other levels.
