Women Empowerment and Antenatal Care Utilization in Bangladesh

Abstract

This study attempts to examine the role of women empowerment in the utilization of antenatal care in Bangladesh. Four dimensions are considered to measure the women empowerment: the highest level of education, freedom of choice/movement, power in the household decision making process and involvement in economic activities. Factor analysis technique is employed to construct the last three dimensions. The probit and the zero-inflated negative binomial regression models are specified and estimated using the 2011 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey data. Results show that all four dimensions of women empowerment contribute positively and significantly to the decision and intensity of utilization of antenatal care in Bangladesh. Findings of the study have a number of policy implications on this issue for a developing country like Bangladesh.

Women empowerment and infant mortality in Bangladesh

“…Binary response variables are created by merging categories (a) and (b) to be '1' to denote that the respondent participates in decision making; and (c) and (d) to be '0' to denote that the respondent does not participate in the decision making process. Following Hossain and Hoque (2015), the rotated factor analysis technique has been used to construct dimensions of women empowerment other than education. 2 Nine variables included in the rotated factor analysis are: choosing a contraceptive method, deciding the use of contraception, decision about respondent's own health, participation in major HH purchases, visiting families and relatives, employment status, decision about child healthcare, freedom of going to a health centre alone and freedom of going to a health centre with a young child.…”

“…A mother is the primary caregiver of a child and she is the first person, who most likely notices the illness of her child. The utilization of maternal healthcare services is more common and frequent among women with more empowered (Bloom et al, 2001;Hossain and Hoque, 2015). Therefore, it would have been better if she makes healthcare choices for her child.…”

The challenges of prenatal care for Bangladeshi women: a qualitative study

“…The vast majority of the participants reflected that women were not allowed to make decisions about prenatal care on their own. Underutilization of antenatal care is directly related to lack of women's autonomy and empowerment (Hossain & Hoque ). The sociocultural norms in society in Bangladesh enforce the variation in power among men and women within households, and the decision‐making power of women in Bangladesh is generally limited to their households and a mother‐in‐law often has more decision‐making power than her daughter‐in‐law.…”

“…These beliefs and practices should be viewed as resulting from the general conservative sociocultural and religious background of people in Bangladesh and Malawi. Traditionally, in a patriarchal social system such as that in Bangladesh, men have the veto power and authority in family decision‐making, rather than the women (Kalam ) and there is a great scope for the empowerment of women, and changing attitudes towards women and girls’ education (Hossain & Hoque ) and freedoms.…”

The Role of Open Educational Resources (OERs) in Primary Education in Developing Nations: A Case Study of India

“…While the consequences of gender discrimination and inequality can be severe, including violence, female feticide, forced abortions, and forced marriages (Rao, Horton & Raguram, 2012;Unnithan-Kumar, 2010), employment and salary differences are daily challenges for many women not subject to extreme cases of violence and abuse (Chandrakala & Shashikala, 2013). Measures to increase the education of women alongside improved health services are paramount for women's empowerment and societal status, which also uplift their household (Hossain & Hoque, 2015;Arora, 2012). Female education is also linked to many other development indicators such as increased child education and reduction of fertility and child mortality rates (Bhattacharya, 2006).…”