Can a Gender Equity and Family Planning Intervention for Men change men’s gender ideology?: Results from the CHARM cluster randomized controlled trial in rural India

In this paper, we aim to assess the effect of the CHARM, a gender equity and family planning counseling intervention for husbands in rural India, on men’s gender ideology. We used a two-armed cluster randomized control trial design and collected survey data from husbands (n=1081) at baseline, 9-months, and 18-months. We used a continuous measure of support for gender equity (i.e. Gender Equitable Men Scale) and a dichotomous measure of equitable attitudes towards women’s role in household decision-making. To assess differences on these outcomes, we used generalized linear mixed models. After controlling for socio-demographic factors, men who received the CHARM intervention were significantly more likely than men in the control condition to have equitable attitudes towards household decision-making at 9-month follow-up (AOR 1.83, 95% CI 1.29–2.60); there was a non-significant difference between the groups for the measure of support for gender equity (23.2 vs. 22.0; p=0.08). For household decision-making, differences were not sustained at 18-month follow-up. Given the role of husbands’ gender ideology on women’s contraceptive use, the CHARM intervention represents a promising approach for tackling root causes of women’s unmet contraceptive needs.