In many developing countries men are the primary decision-makers about sexual activity, fertility, and contraceptive use. Little is known about the dynamics of couples' sexual and reproductive decision-making or about how gender roles affect these decisions.
Gender is just one of many factors that influence couples and affect their reproductive decisions.
In some traditional societies many couples say that the number of children they expect to have is not up to them at all, but rather up to God or to fate. In Ghana, for example, some men in focus-group discussions claimed to make all family decisions. We control them from the initial stage. When she comes to the house and maybe she thinks she is now the lady of the house and does something contrary to your regulations, you warn her. A study of more than 3,000 urban Nigerian couples found that, while men do not dominate decision-making, they still wield more power than women do.