Key Social Norms Take-aways The study underscores that social norms around fertility, marriage, and gender roles interact with personal empowerment in complex ways. Even when girls hold progressive beliefs, they remain constrained by prevailing community norms and fears—especially about infertility and social judgment. To shift intentions and behaviors, interventions must not only improve individual knowledge but also address these broader social pressures by normalizing career aspirations for girls and reducing stigma around contraception.

Objectives This study aimed to investigate whether adolescent girls’ empowerment predicts their intentions to use contraception after marriage in Kebbi State, Northwest Nigeria, a traditional Muslim society where early marriage and childbearing are common. The goal was to develop a context-specific empowerment index for girls and explore which dimensions are associated with contraceptive intentions.

Methods The study surveyed 240 unmarried girls aged 13–19, enrolled in the Girls for Health (G4H) program, which supports rural secondary school girls aspiring to health careers. Using data from the 2018 baseline survey, researchers constructed four empowerment indices: academic self-mastery, perceived career feasibility, progressive gender norms, and marriage autonomy. Family planning knowledge and desired family size were also assessed. A binomial logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine which empowerment dimensions and predictors were linked to girls’ future contraceptive intentions, controlling for age, maternal literacy, and poverty.

Results The study found that only about half of the girls intended to use contraception after marriage, and just one-quarter intended to use it both to delay/space and to stop pregnancies. Among the empowerment dimensions, only perceived career feasibility—a girl’s belief in her ability to pursue tertiary education and a professional career—was significantly associated with contraceptive intentions. Girls who believed they could have a career were nearly 50% more likely to plan on using contraception. Family planning knowledge was also a strong predictor, but progressive gender norms, academic self-mastery, marriage autonomy, and preferred family size were not significantly linked to intentions.

Conclusions The findings highlight that simply excelling in school or holding progressive attitudes is not enough to shape girls’ reproductive intentions in highly traditional settings. Instead, the perception of a feasible professional future plays a critical role, possibly because it gives girls a sense of security and control that offsets fears about contraceptive risks. Providing girls with accurate family planning information and concrete career pathways is therefore essential to raising contraceptive intentions and, ultimately, reducing early or unintended pregnancies.