WUNRN
Association Between Gender Inequality Index & Child Mortality Rates: Study of 138 Countries
Full Study Link: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/15/97
http://www.scidev.net/global/gender/news/research-gender-inequality-child-mortality.html
RESEARCH
LINKS GENDER INEQUALITY & CHILD MORTALITYLinks Gender
The number of children dying across the
globe is strongly linked to the level of discrimination against women in the
nations where they live, an analysis shows.
Gender
inequality is rife in low- and middle-income countries, where women are less
educated than men, have poor access to health services and little control over
their finances.
Development experts have suspected that discrimination against women impacts
child survival (see box below). Now a study published this month (9 March) in
the online journal BMC Public Health has for the first time shown a
relationship between the two factors.
Four possible ways that gender inequality contributes to increased child
mortality
·
Mothers’ exposure to violence increases the chance of children being born
prematurely or with low birth weight.
·
If women do not have access to education, they may be less well equipped to
properly feed children and care for their health
·
If women do not have control of household finances, they may be unable to
spend money on children’s wellbeing
·
In countries with high gender inequality, women are more likely to suffer
from malnutrition, increasing the chances of problems during pregnancy.
“It’s common sense: where women are not treated well, the children die early.
Our study confirmed this hypothesis,” says author Anto Rajkumar, a psychiatrist
who works for the UK National Health Service.
The study measured discrimination against women using the UN’s Gender
Inequality Index (GII), which includes factors such as the percentage of women
who get secondary level education,
the maternal mortality rate and the adolescent fertility rate. The study
compared the GII to child mortality rates in 138 countries including India and
Rwanda.
The analysis found that gender inequality, the proportion of immunised
one-year-old children and national wealth was linked to over half the
differences in neonatal death rates between countries. These three factors also
accounted for some 32 per cent of the differences in death rates in children
under five.
Further analysis shows that the links between gender inequality and child
mortality rates were statistically significant after taking into consideration
the effects of the countries’ GDP (gross domestic product) and child
immunisation coverage.
Statistical analysis shows that the Gender Inequality Index (GII) and child
mortality rates are correlated. Higher GII values correspond to greater gender
inequality. Chart reproduced with permission of the authors.
The impact of gender inequality goes beyond the women, explains public health
researcher Ethel Brinda, another of the study's authors, who is based at Aarhus
University in Denmark.
For example, when women lack control over household finances they are less able
to provide their children with healthcare
and immunisations. The neglect of female children in favour of sons is also
common, says Brinda.
But
there are limitations to the study. For one thing, it does not prove that
gender discrimination actually causes child mortality because this type of
broad analysis doesn’t allow for such a focused finding.
“It’s a study between populations rather than within a population,” explains
Rajkumar. To demonstrate a causal link researchers would need to look at
connections between inequality and child mortality within a population, he
adds.
Furthermore, just one year’s worth of GII data — from 2008 — was available at
the time of the study. The team plans to rerun the analysis with GII data that
has since become available to strengthen their conclusions.
But the study’s finding are “extremely plausible”, says Katherine Fritz,
director of global health at the International Center for Research on Women in
the United States.
There is lots of data within
countries that shows links between gender inequality and poor health outcomes for
children, she says. This study shows that relationship at a global level,
making the link “more concrete”, she adds.
The findings strengthen the case for governments to better integrate social
services such as support for gender violence within their healthcare systems,
says Fritz.
Rajkumar adds that global strategies to tackle child mortality such as the
development goals must “go beyond just medical interventions” and integrate
gender inequality in their activities.