scholarly journals Is mother’s financial autonomy associated with stunting among children aged 7–35 months: An empirical study from India

2022 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. e0000134
Author(s):  
Shirisha P. ◽  
Anjali Bansal
Keyword(s):  
Predictor Variable ◽  
Nutrition Status ◽  
Women’S Autonomy ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Women's Autonomy ◽  
Financial Autonomy ◽  
Level Of Significance ◽  
Chi Square Analysis ◽  
Maternal Autonomy ◽  
Childhood Stunting

Stunting depicts chronic deprivation and is a huge public health problem in several developing countries. Considering the sociocultural and sociodemographic factors of India, we aimed to examine the relationship between maternal autonomy and stunting among children <35 months. We have used the data from the latest round of National Family health survey conducted in 2015–16. The main exposure variable was women’s autonomy which are represented in our study by the four dimensions- decision-making, physical mobility, financial autonomy, attitudes towards domestic violence, the main predictor variable was stunting among children. Chi-square analysis, univariate and multivariable binary logistic regression analysis were performed to find the association of childhood stunting and women’s autonomy. The results were reported at 5% level of significance. All the autonomy variables have shown a significant association with child stunting at 5% level of significance. The unadjusted odds of stunting were found to be significant with respect to all the four dimensions of autonomy variables except physical autonomy. However, after adjusting for other explanatory factors attenuated these relationships and made them statistically insignificant except for women’s economic autonomy (AOR = 0.91; 95% C.I.-(0.85, 0.98)) which was found to be significantly affecting the child’s status of stunting. Our study reinforces that maternal autonomy is a significant predictor of childhood stunting. Hence, we recommend that policy makers, while designing interventions and policies, must address the socioeconomic inequalities at the community level while devising ways to improve women’s empowerment. As it has far-reaching consequences on the nutrition status of the upcoming generations.

FEMALE AUTONOMY AS A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO WOMEN’S HIV-RELATED KNOWLEDGE AND BEHAVIOUR IN THREE CULTURALLY CONTRASTING STATES IN INDIA

2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 557-573 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHELAH S. BLOOM ◽  
PAULA L. GRIFFITHS
Keyword(s):  
Condom Use ◽  
Family Health ◽  
Uttar Pradesh ◽  
Women’S Autonomy ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Women's Autonomy ◽  
Aids Epidemic ◽  
Prevention Programmes ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Gender Based

SummaryFactors contributing to India’s vulnerability to the AIDS epidemic include pervasive poverty, low levels of education and high gender stratification. This study uses data collected in the 1998–99 National Family Health Survey-2 (NFHS-2) to investigate the relationship between aspects of women’s autonomy and four measures of HIV-related knowledge and behaviour – awareness and knowledge of HIV/AIDS, condom awareness and condom use – in three culturally contrasting states in India: Kerala (n=2884), Karnataka (n=4357) and Uttar Pradesh (n=8981). The NFHS-2 is a nationally representative survey of India, with a sampling scheme that was designed such that each state sample can be generalized back to represent ever-married women aged 15–49 living in the state. Kerala scores highest in the four health outcome measures, followed by Karnataka and then Uttar Pradesh, but condom use is lowest in Karnataka. Kerala also leads in the four dimensions of autonomy examined and in socio-demographic status, followed again by Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. Despite these observed differences, in all three states, women with greater autonomy as measured by this study were more likely to be knowledgeable about AIDS and condoms and to use condoms, after controlling for socio-demographic factors. These results concur with other studies focusing on women’s autonomy and health outcomes around the world, and point to the importance of incorporating a gender-based approach to AIDS prevention programmes in India.

An Orwellian Scenario: court ordered caesarean section and women’s autonomy

1999 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 494-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Cahill
Keyword(s):  
Caesarean Section ◽  
Maternity Care ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Fetal Life ◽  
Women’S Autonomy ◽  
Women's Autonomy ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
Current Medical Practice ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Maternal Autonomy

Between 1992 and 1996, a small number of women in the UK were forced by the courts to undergo caesarean section against their expressed refusal. Analysis of the reported cases reveals the blanket assumption of maternal incompetence and the widespread use of thinly veiled coercion. Such attitudes and practices are themselves frequently compounded by inadequate communication. Medical discretion in such problematic cases seems to err on the side of safety and so appears to favour the life of the fetus over maternal autonomy. Despite current policy’s placement of the pregnant woman at the centre of maternity care, obstetricians’ concerns appear to lie more with the unborn fetus. In other words, there seems to be a point at which the value of fetal life begins to outweigh, not so much the life of the woman, but her right to self-determination, her plans and her choices. While it is important to acknowledge that these court ordered caesareans represent an unusual extreme within contemporary maternity care in this country, that they have happened brings into sharp relief some of the stereotypical assumptions about women. These are assumptions that underlie much of current medical practice and may compromise or disempower women in other ways during their experience of pregnancy and labour. Using the first and last of the six reported cases as contextual illustrations, this article focuses on the complex interplay of processes that have brought the medical profession to a position in which their own self-conviction and determination to do what they believe is best for their patients has resulted in gross denial of women’s autonomy and the use of the law to override pregnant women’s refusal of consent.

Moving Towards Routine Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT): Challenges Related to Women’s Autonomy

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanislav Birko ◽  
◽  
Marie-Eve Lemoine ◽  
Minh Thu Nguyen ◽  
Vardit Ravitsky ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prenatal Testing ◽  
Women’S Autonomy ◽  
Women's Autonomy ◽  
Non Invasive

scholarly journals Technowomen: Women’s Autonomy and Its Impact on Environmental Quality

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1611
Author(s):  
Saima Mujeed ◽  
Shuangyan Li ◽  
Musarrat Jabeen ◽  
Abdelmohsen A. Nassani ◽  
Sameh E. Askar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Renewable Energy Consumption ◽  
Women’S Autonomy ◽  
Women's Autonomy ◽  
Role Of Women

The role of women in economic development and the global environment is vital for progressing them towards the United Nations sustainable development goal (SDG-5) that emphasized the need to empower women in every walk of life. The study examines women’s autonomy in the sustainable development agenda under China’s open innovation system from 1975 to 2019. The study employed an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, vector autoregressive (VAR) Granger causality, and innovation accounting matrix to estimate parameters. The existing data are summarized and collated in the context of China to explain as a correlational study. The results show that women’s autonomy moderated with technology spills over to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and substantiate the hump-shaped relationship between them. The increased spending on research and development (R&D) activities, patent publications, and renewable energy consumption empowers women to be equipped with the latest sustainable technologies to improve environmental quality. The pollution haven hypothesis verifies a given country, where trade liberalization policies tend to increase polluting industries to set up their plants that engaged in dirty production that exacerbate GHG emissions. The causality estimates confirmed that technological innovations and renewable energy consumption leads to women’s autonomy. In contrast, females’ share in the labor force participation rate leads to an increase in renewable energy consumption. Thus, it is evident that there is a positive role of women in the country’s sustainable development.

scholarly journals Ecofeminism and Natural Resource Management: Justice Delayed, Justice Denied

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7319
Author(s):  
Yang Liu ◽  
Muhammad Khalid Anser ◽  
Khalid Zaman
Keyword(s):  
Mineral Resource ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Access To Finance ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Women’S Autonomy ◽  
Ecological Footprints ◽  
Women's Autonomy ◽  
Resource Rents

Women have a right to excel in all spheres of activity. However, their roles are mainly confined in the resource extraction industry due to masculinity bias. African women are considered exemplary cases where women have low access to finance and economic opportunities to progress in the natural resource industry. This study examines the role of women’s autonomy in mineral resource extraction by controlling ecological footprints, financial development, environmental degradation, economic growth, and changes in the general price level in the Democratic Republic of the Congo data from 1975–2019. The autoregressive distributed lag estimates show that in the short-run, women’s autonomy decreases mineral resource rents; however, this result disappears in the long-run and the positive role of women’s autonomy in increasing resource capital is confirmed. Ecological footprints are in jeopardy from saving mineral resources both in the short- and long-term. Financial development negatively impacts mineral resource rents, while women’s access to finance supports the mineral resource agenda. The positive role of women in environmental protection has led to increased mineral resource rents in the short- and long-term. Women’s social and economic autonomy increases mineral resource rents in the short-term, while it has evaporated in the long-term. The Granger causality has confirmed the unidirectional linkages running from women’s green ecological footprints, access to finance, and women participating in environmental protection to mineral resource rents in a country. The variance decomposition analysis has shown that women’s economic autonomy and access to finance will exert more significant variance shocks to mineral resource rents over the next ten years’ period. The results conclude the positive role of women’s freedom in the mineral resource sustainability agenda. Thus, there is a high need to authorize women through access to finance and economic decisions to restore natural resource capital nationwide.

“Doing it Our Way” Participation and Kinship in Traditional Surrogacy Narratives in Aotearoa New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Hannah Grace Gibson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Women’S Autonomy ◽  
Women's Autonomy ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
State Oversight ◽  
Gestational Surrogacy ◽  
Multiple Discourses

The practice of traditional surrogacy gives rise to multiple discourses around women’s autonomy and kinship practices globally. In the Aotearoa New Zealand context, traditional surrogacy (where the surrogate donates her own egg as well as gestating the foetus) is legal only on an altruistic basis. Furthermore, it is subject to neither medical nor state oversight, unlike gestational surrogacy which is heavily regulated. Drawing on three years of ethnographic research, this article focuses on both traditional surrogates in Aotearoa New Zealand who have children of their own and those who have chosen a childfree life. Their narratives reveal multilayered motivations that align with and diverge from the ‘help’ narrative often associated with altruistic surrogacy. By drawing on and contributing to current debates on surrogacy globally, I show that traditional surrogates take on their role with clear ideas about kinship and different interpretations of reproductive participation. Their narratives bring to the fore the under-researched topic of traditional surrogacy, and in particular of women who do not want children of their own but choose to donate their eggs and gestate the foetus for another woman. I argue that their negotiation of stigma to make/resist kin disrupts pervasive heteronormative modes of kinship.

scholarly journals Does gender inequality matter for access to and utilization of maternal healthcare services in Bangladesh?

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. e0257388
Author(s):  
Firoz Ahmed ◽  
Fahmida Akter Oni ◽  
Sk. Sharafat Hossen
Keyword(s):  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Bargaining Power ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
Household Wealth ◽  
Maternal Healthcare ◽  
Intrahousehold Bargaining ◽  
Women’S Autonomy ◽  
Women's Autonomy

There is a high prevalence of gender gap in Bangladesh which might affect women’s likelihood to receive maternal healthcare services. In this backdrop, we aim to investigate how gender inequality measured by intrahousehold bargaining power (or autonomy) of women and their attitudes towards intimate partner violence (IPV) affects accessing and utilizing maternal health care services. We used Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) data of 2014 covering 5460 women who gave birth at least one child in the last three years preceding the survey. We performed logistic regression to estimate the effect of women’s autonomy and their attitude towards IPV on access to and utilization of maternal healthcare services. Besides, we employed different channels to understand the heterogeneous effect of gender inequality on access to maternal healthcare services. We observed that women having autonomy positively influenced attaining five required antenatal care (ANC) services (AOR: 1.17; 95% CI: 0.98–1.41) and women’s negative attitudes towards IPV were positively associated with five ANC services (AOR: 1.42; 95% CI: 1.02–1.97), sufficient ANC visits (COR: 1.55; CI: 1.19–2.01), skilled birth attendant (SBA) (AOR: 1.43; 95% CI: 1.05–1.94) and postnatal care (PNC) services (AOR: 1.44; 95% CI: 1.12–1.84). Besides, rural residency, religion, household wealth, education of both women and husband were found to have some of the important channels which were making stronger effect of gender inequality on access to maternal healthcare services. The findings of our study indicate a significant association between access to maternal healthcare services and women’s autonomy as well as attitude towards IPV in Bangladesh. We, therefore, recommend to protect women from violence at home and mprove their intrahousehold bargaining power to increase their access to and utilization of required maternal healthcare services.

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