Male Scepticism, Female Advocacy: Gender Divergence in Family Planning Attitudes in Tarakwa Ward, Uasin Gishu County, Kenya

Abstract

Background : Kenya has made measurable progress in expanding modern contraceptive coverage and lowering fertility, yet unmet need for family planning (FP) persists unevenly across counties, and rural areas continue to report gendered gaps in contraceptive attitudes and use. This study examined how gender shapes perceptions of, and receptivity to, family planning among men and women of reproductive age in Tarakwa Ward, Uasin Gishu County, Kenya. Methods: A qualitative, phenomenological and cross-sectional design was used. Thirty-five in-depth interviews were conducted with community members aged 18–49 years, alongside key informant interviews with healthcare providers, using purposive and snowball sampling. Interviews were conducted in Swahili or English, audio-recorded with consent, transcribed verbatim, and analysed in NVivo 12 using Braun and Clarke's (2006) six-step thematic analysis. Findings were interpreted through Bandura's (1986, 1989) Social Cognitive Theory. Results: Attitudes toward FP diverged sharply by gender. Across 35 community-member interviews, 45.7% expressed active support for FP grounded in maternal health, birth spacing, and financial necessity; 14.3% explicitly framed FP as a “women's issue” from which men could reasonably remain distant; 20.0% expressed male scepticism linked to circulating myths about infertility, diminished virility, and infidelity; and 17.1% described stigma against unmarried FP users as a compounding barrier. Within these themes, individual accounts diverged sharply in content and register by gender: women consistently framed FP in terms of health and economic necessity, while men's accounts more often invoked misinformation, moral concern, or a perceived threat to marital authority. Healthcare providers corroborated these patterns, describing men as largely absent from FP counselling and outreach, and identifying male non-attendance itself as a driver of continued misinformation. Conclusions: Gender divergence in FP attitudes in Tarakwa Ward reflects socially modelled and reciprocally reinforced roles, consistent with Social Cognitive Theory, rather than differences in knowledge alone. Closing this divergence requires deliberate, male-inclusive engagement strategies that address misinformation directly rather than programming that continues to treat women as the sole audience for FP communication