Dimensions of Couples’ Decision-Making at Home: The Ghanian Experience

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 that it will move their decision-making process beyond the confines of households to other levels.