Abstract
This paper examines the impact of women’s autonomy on their children’s nutritional and immunization status. The main objectives of the paper are to see the women’s decision making power in different socio-economic conditions and how far different levels of decision making power influence their children’s nutritional health and immunization status. We have used third round of National Family Health Survey data and the sample size are based on 39,879 women, aged (15-49) years having their last children aged (0-59) months. Women’s autonomy has been assessed through the four aspects of decision making, namely on own health care, large household purchase, mobility to relatives’ house or other family members’ house and ability to spend husband’s money. Children’s nutritional health status has been assessed through ‘z’ score value of weight for age and height for age. Immunization status has been assessed through the criteria of one dose of BCG, 3 doses of DPT and Polio and one dose of measles taken within the 12-23 months. Socio-economic variables are type of residence, women’s educational and occupational status, type of ethnic group and wealth index of the family. The study reveals that the welfare of children depends on the consciousness and awareness of the mother. Awareness is directly related with the mothers white colored job and this job is dependent on women’s higher education. We can take welfare of children as an indicator of autonomy of mothers because autonomy of mothers has the highest effect on nutritional and immunization status of children.
Highlights
Researchers have different opinions on women autonomy
The basic scenario is that the percentage of self-decision making of women is very meager compared to the joint decision making with their husband
Women have no autonomy in any of the four kinds of decision making powers considered in this paper
Summary
Researchers have different opinions on women autonomy. Caldwell [1] defines autonomy as the opportunities for women to receive education and to work outside the home. To be more precise, autonomy may be defined as the ability to control by one’s self, whereas status may mean the access to different type of, resources [3]. Women with low status implies women with weaker control over household resources, higher time constraints, less access to information about health services, poor mental health and lower self esteem. These factors are thought to be closely tied to women’s own nutritional status which may cause low birth weight of children, and low quality of care received by the children. Researchers have begun to investigate the role of women autonomy on the status of their own health as well as the health of their children
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