Women Empowerment and Infant and Child Mortality

Empowerment and demographic outcomes has grown, despite the increase in empowerment

research, findings on the relationship between empowerment and demographic indicators are

inconsistent. Particularly in the health and mortality literature, this inconsistency is due to several

factors, including differing definitions, measures, and social contexts of empowerment. The

inclusion of social networks and social institutions may better inform the definitions and

measurement of empowerment. Data for this study comes from the 2004 Malawi Demographic

and Health Survey from 5,982 mothers with 8,286 infants and children. Multivariate logistic

hazard models, conducted separately for infants and children, investigate how demographic,

socioeconomic, proximate, and empowerment measures are related to child mortality. Results

show that household wealth is an important factor related to both infant and child mortality. For

children, this relationship is mediated by other demographic factors. For both infants and

children, being born to a mother who is divorced increases the odds of death (although this is

mediated by birth characteristics for infants).

(decision-making about visiting family or friends and control over contact with family) is an

important factor related to mortality. For children, if the final say about health care decisions are

made by the husband (or someone else), the likelihood of mortality increases. However, despite

these significant findings, the majority of empowerment measures are not significantly related to

both infant and child mortality.