scholarly journals Women Empowerment and Frequency of Meal Intake Among Children in Ghana

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Kobina Dadzie ◽  
Joshua Amo-Adjei ◽  
Kobina Esia-Donkoh
Keyword(s):  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Women Empowerment ◽  
Meal Frequency ◽  
Meal Intake ◽  
Large Household ◽  
Regression Techniques ◽  
Important Basis ◽  
Health And Well Being

Abstract BackgroundQuality nutrition is an important basis of health and well-being, especially for children as their bodies need to grow, develop and reach their physical and mental potential. Women’s empowerment is not only important for women’s human rights, but also improves nutrition outcomes of both mothers and their children. This study sought to investigate the association between women’s empowerment and minimum meal frequency in Ghana.MethodsThe study used data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS). A sample of 1,640 mother-child (6-23 months) dyad was used and univariate and multiple linear regression techniques were applied.ResultsDecisions on large household purchases (β=0.351, p<0.01) and family visits (β=0.743, p<0.01), ownership over house (β=-0.245, p<0.10), age of child (β=1.387, p<0.01), mother’s educational attainment (β=0.496, p<0.10) and residence (β=-0.298, p<0.10) were significantly associated with minimum meal frequency in Ghana.ConclusionMinimum meal frequency was largely influenced by economic and socio-familial empowerment of women as decisions on large household purchases and family visits showed association with minimum meal frequency. Interventional programs should target households and mothers with lower socio-demographics characteristics such as lower educational level.

scholarly journals Women empowerment and minimum daily meal frequency among infants and young children in Ghana: analysis of Ghana demographic and health survey

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Kobina Dadzie ◽  
Joshua Amo-Adjei ◽  
Kobina Esia-Donkoh
Keyword(s):  
Health Survey ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Women Empowerment ◽  
Meal Frequency ◽  
Significant Positive Association ◽  
Large Household ◽  
Health And Well Being

Abstract Background The nutritional quality of food has an important impact on the health and well-being of families, especially children whose bodies need to grow, develop and reach their full physical and mental potential. Traditionally, women in Ghana provide care and nourishment for their children and families if they have the means to do so or if they are financially, legally and socially empowered. Women’s empowerment is not only important for women’s human rights, but also improves nutrition and health outcomes of both mothers and their children. Women’s empowerment is concerned with increasing ability to make strategic life choices in situations where the ability was hitherto denied. This study sought to investigate the association between women’s empowerment and minimum daily meal frequency (minimum number of meals to be consumed in a day) in Ghana. Methods The study used data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS). A sample of 1640 mother-child dyad was used. Mothers ages ranged from 15 to 49 while children’s ages ranged from 6 to 23 months. Univariate and multiple linear regression techniques were applied to identify women empowerment (economic, socio-familial and legal) and sociodemographic factors associated with minimum daily meal frequency scores. Data was analyzed by the STATA statistical package software version 13.0. Statistical significance level was set at P < 0.10. Results Data from decisions on large household purchases (β = 0.351, p < 0.01) family visits (β = 0.743, p < 0.01), home ownership (β = − 0.245, p < 0.10), age of child (β = 1.387, p < 0.01), mother’s educational attainment (β = 0.496, p < 0.10) and place of residence (β = − 0.298, p < 0.10) showed significant positive association with minimum daily meal frequency in Ghana. Conclusion Minimum daily meal frequency was largely influenced by economic and socio-familial factors that contribute to empowerment of women. as decisions on large household purchases and family visits showed significant positive association with minimum daily meal frequency. Interventional programs should target households and mothers with lower socio-demographic characteristics such as lower educational levels and low economic status to improve minimal daily meal frequency in their children thereby ensuring better child health and well-being.

scholarly journals Association between women’s empowerment and infant and child feeding practices in sub-Saharan Africa: an analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (17) ◽  
pp. 3155-3165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muzi Na ◽  
Larissa Jennings ◽  
Sameera A Talegawkar ◽  
Saifuddin Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Dietary Diversity ◽  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Demographic And Health Surveys ◽  
Meal Frequency ◽  
Child Feeding ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Minimum Dietary Diversity

AbstractObjectiveTo explore the relationship between women’s empowerment and WHO recommended infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices in sub-Saharan Africa.DesignAnalysis was conducted using data from ten Demographic and Health Surveys between 2010 and 2013. Women’s empowerment was assessed by nine standard items covering three dimensions: economic, socio-familial and legal empowerment. Three core IYCF practices examined were minimum dietary diversity, minimum meal frequency and minimum acceptable diet. Separate multivariable logistic regression models were applied for the IYCF practices on dimensional and overall empowerment in each country.SettingBenin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zimbabwe.SubjectsYoungest singleton children aged 6–23 months and their mothers (n 15 153).ResultsLess than 35 %, 60 % and 18 % of children 6–23 months of age met the criterion of minimum dietary diversity, minimum meal frequency and minimum acceptable diet, respectively. In general, likelihood of meeting the recommended IYCF criteria was positively associated with the economic dimension of women’s empowerment. Socio-familial empowerment was negatively associated with the three feeding criteria, except in Zimbabwe. The legal dimension of empowerment did not show any clear pattern in the associations. Greater overall empowerment of women was consistently and positively associated with multiple IYCF practices in Mali, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. However, consistent negative relationships were found in Benin and Niger. Null or mixed results were observed in the remaining countries.ConclusionsThe importance of women’s empowerment for IYCF practices needs to be discussed by context and by dimension of empowerment.

scholarly journals Water, Sanitation, and Women's Empowerment: A systematic review and qualitative metasynthesis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bethany A Caruso ◽  
Amelia Conrad ◽  
Madeleine Patrick ◽  
Ajile Owens ◽  
Kari Kviten ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Conceptual Model ◽  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Water And Sanitation Programs ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Systemic Constraints

Background Water and sanitation programs historically have focused on women's instrumental value in improving effectiveness and impact of programs, though focus is shifting to consider how programming and conditions may contribute to women's empowerment an gender equality. To date no systematic review has comprehensively assessed and synthesized evidence on water and sanitation and women's and girls' empowerment. The primary aims of this review were to: a) identify empirical water and sanitation research that engaged empowerment and/or empowerment-related domains from a pre-specified conceptual model; b) tabulate and report how empowerment-related terminology was used, where and when research was conducted, what methods were leveraged, and if water and/or sanitation was the primary focus; c) synthesize findings by empowerment domain and water and/or sanitation focus. Methods and Findings The conceptual model of women's and girls' empowerment developed by van Eerdewijk et.al (2017) informed our search strategy and analysis. The model presents three interrelated domains (agency, resources, institutional structures) and 13 sub-domains of empowerment. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CABI Global Health, PsycINFO, CINAHL and AGRICOLA for any peer-reviewed sources presenting research related to water and/or sanitation and either empowerment and/or related terms from the conceptual model (4 May 2020). Systematic and ancestry and decendency searching identified 12,616 publications, of which 257 were included following screening, representing 1,600,348 participants. We assessed all studies using the Mixed-Method Appraisal Tool (MMAT). We followed the 'best-fit framework synthesis' approach for analysis, using the domains and sub-domains of the conceptual model as codes to assess all included sources. During coding, we inductively identified two additional sub-domains relevant to water and sanitation: privacy and freedom of movement. Thematic analysis guided synthesis of coded text by domain and sub-domain. The majority of research took place in Asia (46%; 117) or Africa (40%; 102), engaged adults (69%; 177), and were published since 2010; (82%; 211). A greater proportion of studies focused on water (45%; 115) than sanitation (22%; 57) or both (33%; 85). Over half of articles use the term empowerment yet only 7% (17) provided a clear definition or conceptualization. Agency was the least commonly engaged domain (47%; 122) while the Resources domain was dominant (94%; 241). Measures for assessing empowerment and related domains is limited. This review was limited by only including sources in English and only includes menstruation-focused research in the context of water and sanitation. Conclusions Water and sanitation research specifically engaging women's and girls' empowerment in a well-defined or conceptualized manner is limited. A substantial body of research examining domains and sub-domains of empowerment exists, as does research that illuminates myriad negative impacts of water and sanitation conditions and circumstances women's and girl's well-being. Available research should be used to develop and evaluate programs focused on improving the life outcomes of women and girls, which has only been minimally conducted to date. A more comprehensive 'transformative WASH' that includes gender-transformative approaches to challenge and reduce systemic constraints on women's and girls' resources and agency is not only warranted but long overdue.

scholarly journals SOCIOECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT: A CASE OF FARM HOUSEHOLDS IN ABEOKUTA, OGUN STATE

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-78
Author(s):  
Chioma Patricia Adekunle ◽  
◽  
Augustine Adebayo Kutu ◽  
David Alaba Alori ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bargaining Power ◽  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Married Couples ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Gender Disparity ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Farm Households ◽  
Tobit Regression ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Socioeconomic Determinants

This study examines the socioeconomic determinants of women’s empowerment or bargaining power among married couples living in farm households in Nigeria. A multistage random sampling technique is employed to collect cross-sectional data from 320 farm households aged between 15 to 50 years. Women’s empowerment or bargaining power is measured using 18 questions, and a Tobit regression model is used to analyze all the variables employed. According to the findings, husbands have five more years of formal education than wives and literacy rates are higher for men (62%) than for women (30%). This differenceleads to more decision-making power for men. The result shows that there is a visible gender disparity in the worth and value of assets brought into the marriage, with the men bringing around 34% while that of the women is around 3% making men the main decision-makers and women less empowered. As a policy recommendation, women’s status in society should be enhanced through investment in education and well-being. Additionally, policies and programs aimed at leveraging the bargaining power of the woman in her attempts to make decisions in the household and increasing her empowerment should be formulated and implemented by policymakers.

scholarly journals Women’s Empowerment and HIV Testing Uptake: A Meta-analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys from 33 Sub-Saharan African Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-286
Author(s):  
Sanni Yaya ◽  
Gebretsadik Shibre ◽  
Dina Idriss-Wheeler ◽  
Olalekan A Uthman
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Hiv Testing ◽  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Wife Beating ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Demographic And Health Surveys ◽  
Women Empowerment ◽  
Testing Uptake ◽  
Sub Saharan

Background: There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that women’s empowerment can help achieve better health behaviours and outcomes. However, few have looked at the impact of women’s empowerment on HIV testing in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This study investigated the association between women’s empowerment and HIV testing among women in 33 countries across SSA. Methods: Cross-sectional data from the most recent Demographic and Health Surveys (2005-2018) of 33 countries in SSA were used. Confounder adjusted logistic regression analysis was completed separately for each of the 33 DHS datasets to produce the adjusted Odds Ratio (OR) for the association between women empowerment and HIV testing. The regression analysis strictly accounted for the three design elements (weight, cluster and strata) to produce an estimate representative of the respective countries. Finally, an Individual Participant Data (IPD) meta-analysis approach was used to statistically pool the effect of women empowerment on HIV testing. Results: There was a wide variation in the percentage of women who were empowered among the countries studied, with only a few countries such as South Africa, Angola and Ghana having a high prevalence of negative attitudes toward wife beating. HIV testing was higher in Angola, Lesotho, Uganda and South Africa. While participation in one or two of the three decisions had been marginally associated with lower odds of HIV testing across the SSA regions (0.89; 95%CI: 0.83, 0.97); the corresponding prediction interval crossed the null. Being involved in the three decisions (0.92; 95%CI: 0.84, 1.00) and disagreement to wife-beating (0.99; 95%CI: 0.94, 1.05) had no statistical relationship with HIV testing uptake. Conclusion and Global Health Implications: The two indirect indicators of women empowerment could not predict HIV testing uptake. Further studies are recommended to establish the nature of the relationship between HIV testing and women’s empowerment that is measured through standard tools. Key words: • HIV/AIDS prevention • Women • Empowerment • Gender equality • Global health • Sub-Saharan Africa   Copyright © 2020 Yaya et al. Published by Global Health and Education Projects, Inc. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in this journal, is properly cited.

scholarly journals Pros and Cons of Women Empowerment Methodologies/Approches: A Review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neha Singh ◽  
Khusboo Raj ◽  
Sarvjeet Kaur
Keyword(s):  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Women Empowerment ◽  
Related Development ◽  
Survey Instruments ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Survey Questionnaires

As the concept of “empowerment” varies depending on the context or circumstances with different meanings and terminologies by different researchers the methods for systematically measuring empowerment differs. Multiple important instruments are constructed to monitor progress towards gender equality and women’s empowerment at a regional and global scale. The paper will highlight particularly on the approaches developed by UNDP like Gender-related Development Index (GDI), Women’s Empowerment Index (WEI) etc with special focus on pros and cons of each methodology. Although many studies and discussions around empowerment are commonly limited to activities like “economic”, “social” and “political” forms of empowerment. Therefore it sometimes also requires interventions that are beyond survey and are more holistic that explores other dimensions that have practical implications for to women’s empowerment. The paper also reflects on some different kinds of non-survey instruments that can be useful for measuring women’s empowerment with their pros and cons. Most of the non-survey instruments described in this paper can generate both quantitative and qualitative data and have many uses including the evaluation of a development programme. Like our survey questionnaires, we can also pretest our non-survey instruments extensively with people who are alike to respondents in our study, so that the logistic work could be easy to conduct and understandable by the researchers.

scholarly journals Association of Women’s Empowerment With Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (Wash) Services in Ethiopia: A Cross-sectional Analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Bogale
Keyword(s):  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Water Source ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Sanitation Facility ◽  
Sanitation And Hygiene ◽  
Index Approach ◽  
Significance Levels ◽  
Improved Sanitation

Abstract Background: Access to safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services is vital for human health and well-being. In Ethiopia, lack of improved WASH services has existed as a health problem for many years. Empowering women is among the most important factors for improving WASH services, but research-based evidence is lacking in this regard. The present study was designed to analyse the association between women’s empowerment and WASH services in Ethiopia.Methods: This analysis is based on the 2016 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS). The survey-based Women’s emPowERment (SWPER) index approach is used to develop women’s empowerment indices. The three empowerment domains used by the SWPER authors include attitude to violence, social independence, and decision-making. Multilevel logistic regression was used to assess the association between these domains of women’s empowerment and WASH services. Estimates were presented as odds ratio (OR) and expressed per one standard deviation (SD) with significance levels set at the 5% level. Results: Overall, 90.9%, 78.4%, and 50.3% of the households included in this analysis had no basic handwashing facility, improved sanitation facility, and improved water source, respectively. A one SD increase in the social independence domain was associated with 16% higher odds of having basic handwashing facility (AOR: 1.16; 95%CI: 1.02, 1.33). As women’s attitude to violence increased by one SD, the odds of having improved sanitation facility is increased by 22% (AOR: 1.22; 95%CI: 1.05, 1.42). Also, a SD increase in social independence domain was associated with 18% higher odds of having improved sanitation facility (AOR: 1.18; 95% CI: 1.04, 1.34). There was no statistically significant association between domains of women’s empowerment and source of water.Conclusions: This study has shown that most of the households in Ethiopia had no access to improved WASH services. Multiple regression analyses revealed that empowering women had association with having basic handwashing and improved sanitation facility. The findings of this study have suggestive evidence that empowering women could improve WASH cervices.

scholarly journals Women's empowerment and fertility preferences of married women: analysis of demographic and health survey’2016 in Timor-Leste

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-261
Author(s):  
Nandeeta Samad ◽  
◽  
Pranta Das ◽  
Segufta Dilshad ◽  
Hasan Al Banna ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Health Survey ◽  
Women's Empowerment ◽  
Married Women ◽  
Fertility Rate ◽  
Demographic And Health Survey ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Women Empowerment ◽  
Fertility Preferences ◽  
Timor Leste

<abstract> <p>A recently independent state, Timor-Leste, is progressing towards socioeconomic development, prioritizing women empowerment while its increased fertility rate (4.1) could hinder the growth due to an uncontrolled population. Currently, limited evidence shows that indicators of women's empowerment are associated with fertility preferences and rates. The objective of this study was to assess the association between women empowerment and fertility preferences of married women aged 15 to 49 years in Timor-Leste using nationally representative survey data. The study was conducted using the data of the latest Timor-Leste Demographic and Health Survey 2016. The study included 4040 rural residents and 1810 urban residents of Timor-Leste. Multinomial logistic regression has been performed to assess the strength of association between the exposures indicating women's empowerment and outcome (fertility preference). After adjusting the selected covariates, the findings showed that exposures that indicate women empowerment in DHS, namely, the employment status of women, house and land ownership, ownership of the mobile phone, and independent bank account status, contraceptive use, and the attitude of women towards negotiating sexual relations are significantly associated with fertility preferences. The study shows higher the level of education, the less likely were the women to want more children, and unemployed women were with a higher number of children. Our study also found that the attitude of violence of spouses significantly influenced women's reproductive choice. However, employment had no significant correlation with decision-making opportunities and contraceptive selection due to a lack of substantial data. Also, no meaningful data was available regarding decision-making and fertility preferences. Our findings suggest that women's empowerment governs decision-making in fertility preferences, causing a decline in the fertility rate.</p> </abstract>

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