TY - JOUR
T1 - Adapting and Validating the G-NORM (Gender Norms Scale) in Nepal
T2 - An Examination of How Gender Norms Are Associated with Agency and Reproductive Health Outcomes
AU - Sedlander, Erica
AU - Dahal, Minakshi
AU - Bingenheimer, Jeffrey Bart
AU - Puri, Mahesh C.
AU - Rimal, Rajiv N.
AU - Granovsky, Rachel
AU - Diamond-Smith, Nadia G.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (1K01HD08628). This work was also supported by a grant from the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University (no grant number).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Studies in Family Planning published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Population Council.
PY - 2023/3
Y1 - 2023/3
N2 - Research calls for the sexual and reproductive rights field to prioritize gender norms to ensure that women can act on their reproductive rights. However, there is a gap in accepted measures. We addressed this by including important theoretical components of gender norms: differentiating between descriptive and injunctive norms and adding a referent group. Our team originally developed and validated the G-NORM, a gender norms scale, in India. In this paper, we describe how we subsequently adapted and validated it in Nepal. We administered items to women of reproductive age, conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and examined associations between the subscales and reproductive health outcomes. Like the original G-NORM, our factor analyses showed that descriptive norms and injunctive norms comprise two distinct scales which fit the data well and had Cronbach alphas of 0.92 and 0.89. More equitable descriptive gender norms were associated with higher decision-making scores, increased odds of intending to use family planning, disagreeing that it is wrong to use family planning, and older ideal age at marriage. Injunctive gender norms were only associated with disagreeing that it is wrong to use family planning. Findings offer an improved measure of gender norms in Nepal and provide evidence that gender norms are critical for agency and reproductive health outcomes.
AB - Research calls for the sexual and reproductive rights field to prioritize gender norms to ensure that women can act on their reproductive rights. However, there is a gap in accepted measures. We addressed this by including important theoretical components of gender norms: differentiating between descriptive and injunctive norms and adding a referent group. Our team originally developed and validated the G-NORM, a gender norms scale, in India. In this paper, we describe how we subsequently adapted and validated it in Nepal. We administered items to women of reproductive age, conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and examined associations between the subscales and reproductive health outcomes. Like the original G-NORM, our factor analyses showed that descriptive norms and injunctive norms comprise two distinct scales which fit the data well and had Cronbach alphas of 0.92 and 0.89. More equitable descriptive gender norms were associated with higher decision-making scores, increased odds of intending to use family planning, disagreeing that it is wrong to use family planning, and older ideal age at marriage. Injunctive gender norms were only associated with disagreeing that it is wrong to use family planning. Findings offer an improved measure of gender norms in Nepal and provide evidence that gender norms are critical for agency and reproductive health outcomes.
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U2 - 10.1111/sifp.12231
DO - 10.1111/sifp.12231
M3 - Article
C2 - 36715570
AN - SCOPUS:85147018811
SN - 0039-3665
VL - 54
SP - 181
EP - 200
JO - Studies in family planning
JF - Studies in family planning
IS - 1
ER -