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CSDE Seminar Series

Population Research Discovery Seminars

Taking the Population Control Out of Family Planning Measurement (and Measuring Autonomy Instead)

Leigh Senderowicz, Gender & Women’s Studies and Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison


Parrington Hall Room 360

To Join By Zoom: Register HERE

Follow this link to sign up for a 1:1 meeting with Dr. Senderowicz during their visit on October 4th.

10/04/2024
12:30-1:30 PM PT

360 Parrington Hall

Co-Sponsor(s):

Population Health Initiative

This talk will explore the ways that the ideology of population control permeates the design and quantitative evaluation of contemporary family planning projects, 30 years after the International Conference on Population and Development called for an end to population control.  The talk will draw from the Contraceptive Autonomy Study, a project designed to explore various dimensions of autonomy and coercion in family planning, and to develop new theories about why and how adverse experiences with contraceptive coercion manifest. This presentation will focus specially on modes of measurement, and the challenges to designing new measures that better assess person-centered and justice-based approaches to contraceptive care.


Dr. Leigh Senderowicz is a critical demographer focusing on global sexual and reproductive health and rights. Leigh is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with a joint appointment in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She completed her doctorate in global health at Harvard University and earned her masters in public health from Johns Hopkins prior to that. Leigh’s research focuses on reproductive autonomy, exploring the ways that new approaches to measurement and evaluation can promote person-centered care and reproductive freedom.