Improving Data Concerning Women's Empowerment in Sub‐Saharan Africa

Abstract

This study assesses the utility of Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) questions regarding women's empowerment in the context of sub-Saharan Africa. We examine the use of, and need for improvements to, women's empowerment data in Ghana, Mozambique, Senegal, and Uganda. Drawing on interviews conducted among gender and health experts and on context-specific literature, our findings reveal that although DHS data are widely used, data needs remain in five areas: economic empowerment, knowledge of legal rights and recourse, participation in decisionmaking, attitudes and social norms, and adolescent girls. We recommend that Demographic and Health Surveys be modified-for example, through adding specific survey items-to fulfill some but not all of these emerging women's empowerment data needs. We also suggest that other surveys fill known gaps and that data users carefully consider the meaning and relative weight of the women's empowerment items according to the cultural context in which the data are collected.

Gender inequality and the use of maternal healthcare services in rural sub-Saharan Africa

“…More generally, the ambiguous impact of women's autonomy or decision-making authority on maternal service utilisation or contraceptive use in Africa has also been reported by other authors (Desai and Johnson, 2005;DeRose and Ezeh, 2010). There are several plausible explanations for these results, beyond the possibility that women's decision-making authority, conceptually and operationally based on the Asian context, may not be an important determinant of the use of maternal health service in these specific African contexts (Schatz and Williams, 2012;Heckert and Fabic, 2013). Conceptually, we measure women's decision-making authority by whether they have a joint final say with their partner in the household, a model advocated by many authors (Mullany et al, 2005;Ahmed et al, 2010).…”

The Women’s Empowerment in Livestock Index

“…Friis-Hansen and Duveskog (2012) found two dimensions of empowerment to be relevant in East Africa: self-perceptions of farmers about their power and agency in life, such as the power to influence their lives and community, and actual physical expressions of agency in their daily lives, such as access to and control over productive assets, knowledge, and services. Heckert and Fabic (2013) tested the usefulness in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) of empowerment indicators used by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). These surveys are used to collect health and population data worldwide-including empowerment data-and use empowerment indicators developed in Southeast Asia.…”

Husband and Wife Perspectives on Farm Household Decision-making Authority and Evidence on Intra-household Accord in Rural Tanzania

“…2 Although definitions vary, to be “empowered” is to have the rights, capacity, and assets to be able to make choices (Ibrahim & Alkire, 2007; and see Alkire, Meinzen-Dick, Peterman, Quisumbing, and Seymour (2013) for a fuller discussion). Intra-household bargaining power is one component of empowerment, for which decision-making authority is used as an indicator (Doss, 2013, Heckert and Fabric, 2013, Kabeer, 2001, Mason, 2005). We refer the reader to recent excellent reviews in Kebede et al, 2013, Doss, 2013, and Malapit and Quisumbing (2014) for a more thorough discussion of intra-household bargaining and decision-making processes.…”