Women empowerment and reproductive health care interventions in India
- Bihar Journal of Public Administration
- 17(1), Jan-June, 2020: p.115-122
This study attempts to examine the role of women empowerment to examine the differences in utilization of reproductive health care practices in two different settings of India, i.e. Northern and southern India. This is measured by three broad utilizations for health care practices, i.e. at least four antenatal visits at the time of pregnancy, assistance by a skilled person and institutional place of delivery at the time of pregnancy, which can effect women’s reproductive health as well as the welfare of a society. Four dimensions are considered to measure the women empowerment: the non-justification of women towards wife beating, freedom of movement, power in the household decision making process and justification towards refusing sexual intercourse to husband. Factor analysis technique is employed to construct the lastfour dimensions. Binary logistic regression models are estimated using the 2015-16 India 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 reproductive health care interventions both in the northern and southern regions of India. Findings from this study revealed that women’s decision making autonomy in southern states and their attitudes towards wife beating in northern states of India appeared to be very important determinants to their reproductive health care interventions or practices. – Reproduced
Antenatal care visits, Women empowerment, Factor analysis, DHS data