Key Social Norms Take-aways Restrictive gender norms—particularly expectations around early childbearing, limited female autonomy, and deference to marital households—shape newly married women’s reproductive health behaviors; however, this study shows that participatory, life-skills-based interventions can begin to shift these norms by strengthening women’s agency, communication, and social support networks. The study suggests that addressing norms indirectly—through empowerment, relationship-building, and safe spaces for dialogue—can reduce normative pressures and enable more equitable decision-making, even in highly constrained settings.
Objectives The study aimed to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and implementation of the TARANG life skills and reproductive health empowerment intervention for newly married women in rural Rajasthan, India, and to generate insights to inform a future larger trial.
Methods This study used a convergent mixed-methods, single-group pre-post pilot design with 42 newly married women (ages 18–25). Quantitative data were collected through baseline and endline surveys and analyzed using descriptive statistics, focusing on feasibility (attendance), acceptability (satisfaction), and usefulness. Qualitative data were collected through in-depth interviews with participants and program staff and analyzed using thematic analysis. Interviews explored perceptions around gender roles, fertility expectations, decision-making power, couple communication, autonomy, and relationships with husbands and mothers-in-law.
Intervention Details The Transforming Actions for Reaching and Nurturing Gender Equity and Empowerment (TARANG) intervention for newly married women consisted of 16 group-based sessions delivered over approximately six months, integrating life skills with reproductive health education across three domains: empowerment, norms, and sexual and reproductive health. Developed using a community-engaged approach, the curriculum used interactive, culturally appropriate activities to build knowledge, agency, and communication skills, while also engaging key household influencers (e.g., husbands and mothers-in-law) through complementary components.
Results The intervention demonstrated high acceptability and feasibility, with 73.8% of participants attending at least half of sessions and over 97% reporting satisfaction. Qualitative findings showed increased reproductive health knowledge, improved decision-making capacity and sense of agency, stronger communication with husbands, and improved relationships with mothers-in-law. Participants also reported forming supportive peer networks. Key barriers included heavy workloads, cultural practices and norms (e.g., extended stays at natal homes), and the need for sustained community engagement.
Conclusions The study concludes that a life skills–based reproductive health intervention for newly married women is both feasible and beneficial in this context, with potential to improve agency, relationships, and reproductive health outcomes. The findings support scaling and further testing of the intervention in a larger trial and highlight the importance of addressing social norms and structural constraints alongside knowledge-building to achieve meaningful change.