Over the past two decades, women's empowerment has increasingly become an essential component of sustainable development. However, few studies have examined the effect of different dimensions of women's empowerment in determining women's health care utilization and their children in Ethiopia. This study examined the associations between women’s empowerment and contraceptive use in Jimma Zone, Ethiopia.

A community-based cross-sectional study was employed to collect relevant data using a structured questionnaire survey by interviewing 746 randomly selected married women of the reproductive age group via smartphone applications (ODK/KOBO). After that, the data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential data analysis techniques including factor analysis, multivariable regressions, and inverse probability weighting employing STATA/SE15.1. An overall score of empowerments including dimensional indices of women’s empowerment was used in the analysis. The quantitative findings were substantiated and triangulated with relevant document reviews.

Apparently, the results of the study revealed that out of the total participants, (746), about 55% were found to be current users of contraceptives, a significant improvement compared to EDHS (2016) (35% current family utilization among married women in Ethiopia). The study pointed out important associations between several dimensions of women’s empowerment and the choice of contraceptive methods. Socio-demographic variables (age of the women [? = 0.1, ? = 0.000], access to information [? = .52, ? = 0.013], birth spacing [-.52, P=.08]), facility-related factors (access to transport [? = .93, ? = 0.000], the type of health facility near their vicinity [.64, 0.002]), and household decision-making power [? =.95, P = 0.009] were found to  have a strong positive association with current use of family planning methods. Contraceptive use among participant women who reported that they were involved in decision making alone or jointly with their husband/partner was found to be higher than those whose decision power was limited.

Family planning utilization improved over the past five years and Packard-funded projects contributed to the improvement of family planning utilization. The major findings of the study, in general, indicated that women’s empowerment is an important determinant of contraceptive use in the study area. Women’s empowerment dimensions associated with household decision-making power, socio-demographic variables, and facility-related factors were found to be important determinants of contraceptive use. Intervention programs aimed at increasing contraceptive use may need to involve different approaches, including promoting women's decision-making power increasing access to service delivery and quality of services, and availability of family planning methods/options. Future interventions should focus on integrating women’s empowerment into family planning programming, particularly in enhancing women’s decision-making autonomy. Further research may be needed on the socio-cultural context of women that influences women empowerment and family planning use in the project intervention area to establish an in-depth understanding of the context.

• Women Empowerment
• Family Planning
• Utilization
• Jimma
• Contraceptive Use
• Gender Equality
• Decision Making

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This dataset encompasses information on women’s attributes such as age, education, religion, place of residence, and employment. The dataset also included partner-related attributes on age, age difference, attitude, education, job, and behavior.  Furthermore, the data set also has information on the types of health facilities, distance to the health facility, cost of health facility, and reputation of the health facility. Finally, the dataset has included information on intimate partner violence and women's power of decision-making.

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