TITLE:
Women’s Autonomy in Household Purchasing Decision Making in Sri Lanka: An Application of Multivariate Baseline-Category Logit Model
AUTHORS:
D. G. S. Chandradasa, N. Withanage, A. S. Ananda
KEYWORDS:
Women’s Autonomy, Baseline Category Logit Model, Generalized Linear Mixed Models, Household Purchases
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Applied Sociology,
Vol.11 No.2,
February
19,
2021
ABSTRACT: As many researches on gender and household purchasing decision making are sociological as well as descriptive, this attempt
tries to fill the gap with applying of statistical model in to the same
context. This is basically an inductive approach that generates data, applies
joint modeling and moves forward in sociological interpretation. The data has
been generated in an Island-wide survey consisting 28,800 household units in
Sri Lanka in 2016. Generalized linear mixed approach was applied to
baseline-category logit models to identify the factors associated with women’s
autonomy in decision making on daily household purchases and major household
purchases. This research comes up to the conclusions that women’s age,
education status of the women and spouses, number of children, residence area
and economic status in the family emerged as important factors associated with
women’s autonomy in decision making. Increased age, well paid employment and
having many living children are all positively associated with women’s autonomy
in decision making in both daily household purchases and major household
purchases. Women from rural and estate areas are less likely be autonomous in
decision making than the women from urban areas. Highly educated women are more
likely to make decisions jointly while the women who less attended formal
education are further likely to make decisions unaccompanied.