Women empowerment through health seeking behavior in Bangladesh: Evidence from a national survey

Hasan, Nazmul; Uddin, Mudassir

doi:10.3329/seajph.v6i1.30343

Cited by 14 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(9 reference statements)

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“…The lower the respondent's age, the more problems in accessing health care they faced. This finding was also stated in the study done in Bangladesh (6). In the study, access to health care of married women was better if they were married to educated and had white collar husbands.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

“…A group of study, mainly conducted in Asia and Africa, showed that women's empowerment is linked with contraception usage (6,7), lower fertility (8) and longer birth intervals (9). In Ghana, aspects of household decision-making, perceptions of spousal abuse, and spousal age differences were associated with women's utilization of health care.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Empowerment and Problems in Health Care Access among Currently Married Women in Myanmar: A Secondary Data Analysis on MDHS 2015-16

Htun¹,

Hnin²,

Khaing³

2020

Preprint

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Background: Women’s health outcomes are influenced by the lack of access to health care and their inability to make decisions for themselves. This study was conducted to identify the association between women's empowerment and the problems in assessing health care among currently married women aged 15-49 years. Method: A secondary analysis by using Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey (MDHS) (2015-16) data, which included all 15 regions of Myanmar. In the study, (7,759) eligible currently married women aged 15-49 years were included. Result: Among eligible women, 52.43% (95% CI: 0.51-0.53) had problems in accessing health care. Women with medium and high empowerment scores were less likely to experience problems in accessing health care compared to women who got low score (aOR=0.85, 95%CI: 0.73-0.98) (aOR=0.55, 95% CI: 0.47-0.65) respectively. Women from rural area (aOR=1.41, 95% CI:1.15-1.72) and women living in Chin State, one of the least developed states, (aOR=1.84, 95% CI: 1.38-2.46) had faced more problems in accessing health care, on the other hand, the problems were seen to be reduced in the case of women aged over 35 years (aOR=0.66, 95% CI: 0.47- 0.94), and those who had an educated husband (aOR=0.76, 95% CI: 0.66-0.86), a husband with a white collar job (aOR=0.71, 95% CI: 0.56-0.89), and those living with an extended family (aOR=0.74, 95% CI: 0.66-0.84). Conclusion: The study showed when the women are more empowered, they might have less problems in accessing health care. These finding would contribute to the policy formulation in reducing health inequity issues in terms of increasing women's empowerment by enabling women getting equal right to education and jobs. Key words: women's empowerment, problems in accessing health care, Demographic and Health Surveys, Myanmar, knowledge, decision power, beating, labour force

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empowerment and Problems in Health Care Access among Currently Married Women in Myanmar: A Secondary Data Analysis on MDHS 2015-16

Htun¹,

Hnin²,

Khaing³

2020

Preprint

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“…33,34 The odds ratio analysis showed that married women who were currently working had higher odds of making their own decisions and this is consistent with research in Bangladesh. 35 Women from rural areas are more often decision makers than their urban counterparts but a different result was observed in Nepal where married women from urban areas were twice as likely to make their own decisions compared to rural women. 34 Married women who made their own decision were more likely to suffer from domestic violence and this is in line with another study in Pakistan where it has been found that women with decision making power are 2.29 times more likely to report experiencing violence by their husband/partner in their lifetime but Indian authors reported that women with decision making power are less likely to experience domestic violence.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Domestic violence and decision-making power of married women in Myanmar: analysis of a nationally representative sample

et al. 2019

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BACKGROUND: Women in Myanmar are not considered decision makers in the community and the physical and psychological effect of violence makes them more vulnerable. There is a strong negative reaction, usually violent, to any economic activity generated by women among poorer and middle-class families in Myanmar because a woman's income is not considered necessary for basic survival.OBJECTIVE: Explore the relationship between domestic violence on the decision-making power of married women in Myanmar.DESIGN: Cross-sectional.SETTING: National, both urban and rural areas of Myanmar.PATIENTS AND METHODS: Data from the Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey 2015-16 were used in this analysis. In that survey, married women aged between 15 to 49 years were selected for interview using a multistage cluster sampling technique. The dependent variables were domestic violence and the decision-making power of women. Independent variables were age of the respondents, educational level, place of residence, employment status, number of children younger than 5 years of age and wealth index.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Domestic violence and decision-making power of women.SAMPLE SIZE: 7870 currently married women.RESULTS: About 50% respondents were 35 to 49 years of age and the mean (SD) age was 35 (8.4) years. Women's place of residence and employment status had a significant impact on decision-making power whereas age group and decision-making power of women had a relationship with domestic violence.CONCLUSION: Giving women decision making power will be indispensable for the achievement of sustainable development goals. Government and other stakeholders should emphasize this to eliminate violence against women.LIMITATIONS: Use of secondary data analysis of cross-sectional study design and cross-sectional studies are not suitable design to assess this causality. Secondly the self-reported data on violence may be subject to recall bias.CONFLICT OF INTEREST: None.

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“…In many areas-especially rural areas-men often control decisions about the health of their wives and children, including the family's use of health services [4,10]. A group of studies that were mainly conducted in Asia and Africa showed that women's empowerment is linked with contraception usage [11,12], lower fertility [13], and longer birth intervals [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empowerment and health care access barriers among currently married women in Myanmar

2021

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Background Although Myanmar is moving to attain UHC in 2030, health care utilization indicators are still low, especially among women. Women’s health outcomes are determined by the lack of access to health care, and many factors influence this condition. The objective of the present work was to identify the association between women’s empowerment and barriers to accessing health care among currently married women in Myanmar. Method We performed a secondary analysis using the Myanmar Demographic and Health Survey (2015–16), including 7759 currently married women aged 15–49 years. The outcome variable, barriers to accessing health care, were asked about in terms of whether the respondent faced barriers to getting permission to go, getting money to go, the distance to the health facility, and not wanting to go alone. The variables were recoded into zero, one, and more than one barrier. After performing the exploratory factor analysis for women’s empowerment indicators (decision-making power and disagreement to justification to wife-beating), a multinomial logistic regression was carried out. Results Among currently married women, 48% experienced no barriers when accessing health care services, 21.9% had one barrier, and 30.1% had more than one barrier. After the exploratory factor analysis, scores were recoded into three levels. Women with low and middle empowerment had 1.5 odds (AOR 1.5, 95% CI: 1.2–1.8) and 1.5 odds (AOR 1.5, 95% CI: 1.3–1.9), respectively, to have barriers to accessing health care when compared to those with high empowerment for one barrier group. For the women who had more than one barrier, women with low empowerment were 1.4 times more likely (AOR 1.4, 95% CI: 1.1–1.7) to experience barriers in comparison to women with high empowerment. The barriers were seen to be reduced in the case of women who had a high level of education, had fewer children, came from rich households, and lived in urban areas. Conclusion When women are more empowered, they tend to face fewer barriers when accessing health care services. This finding could contribute to the policy formulation for reducing health inequity issues by increasing women’s empowerment.

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Women empowerment through health seeking behavior in Bangladesh: Evidence from a national survey

Cited by 14 publications

References 12 publications

Empowerment and Problems in Health Care Access among Currently Married Women in Myanmar: A Secondary Data Analysis on MDHS 2015-16

Empowerment and Problems in Health Care Access among Currently Married Women in Myanmar: A Secondary Data Analysis on MDHS 2015-16

Domestic violence and decision-making power of married women in Myanmar: analysis of a nationally representative sample

Empowerment and health care access barriers among currently married women in Myanmar

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