How women view marriage and childbearing decisions: Recent WEMNS evidence from Liberia and Sierra Leone
A key component for promoting gender equality is understanding how women perceive women’s ability in society to make basic choices about family formation: when and whom to marry, whether to divorce, or if and when to have children
- gender
- women
By Emily Myers and Flor PazApril 10, 2026
Key takeaways
•An indicator in the Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS) measures how women perceive women’s choices in marriage and childbearing.
•About one‑third of women in Liberia and Sierra Leone fully endorse women’s rights to family formation, such as marriage and childbearing decisions, with significant variations by age and region.
•Strengthening education outcomes, expanding ICT access, and using community dialogues to challenge restrictive gender roles can help shift norms and expand women’s empowerment.
A key component for promoting gender equality is understanding how women perceive women’s ability in society to make basic choices about family formation: when and whom to marry, whether to divorce, or if and when to have children. In some areas, cultural attitudes or norms limit these choices and how women see them; in other areas, they may exercise more autonomy. Understanding how women in different countries and cultural and economic contexts see these challenges is vital to devising and targeting gender equity policies.
Data collected using the Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS), a survey tool developed by IFPRI and partners, casts light on how women in Liberia and Sierra Leone view these important questions, and how these issues relate to other empowerment measures. Slightly more than one-third of respondents in each country agreed that women should choose when to marry or divorce, and whether or when to have children, or to have no more children. At the same time, there are substantial regional and age variations that provide important insights for policymakers navigating and changing the complex landscape of gender attitudes.
This blog post explores that data and what it means within the overall WEMNS framework that gauges women’s empowerment. Liberia and Sierra Leone used WEMNS to collect gender data in nationally representative surveys in 2025, with technical support from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO; read more about WEMNS scale-up and our partnership with FAO here). These efforts were part of the 50×2030 Initiative, which aims to transform agricultural data systems to improve rural livelihoods and food security.