Women’s empowerment has a strong potential to promote sustainable development. While reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH) intervention coverage has substantial variability across social strata, the association with women’s empowerment is less understood.

In this study, we used Demographic and Health Survey data from 62 low- and middle-income countries to evaluate the association between women’s empowerment and the Composite Coverage Index (CCI), a weighted average of coverage of eight RMNCH interventions. We also assessed whether these effects are modified by wealth. Women’s empowerment was measured using the three domains (attitude to violence, social independence and decision making) of the survey-based indicator of women’s empowerment (SWPER).

We found positive associations between the three domains of SWPER and CCI at the country level. One standard deviation change in empowerment increased the CCI by 14.2 percentage points (attitude to violence), 15.3 percentage points (decision-making), and 16.3 percentage points (social independence). The association between social independence and CCI was modified by wealth: each additional standard deviation was associated with 21.8 (95% confidence interval (CI)=14.0-29.6) and 8.7 (95% CI=5.4-12.0) percentage points increase in the CCI among the poorest and the richest quintiles, respectively.

Our findings suggest that efforts toward the achievement of SDG5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls) may support improvements in RMNCH in low- and middle-income countries, especially among the poorest women and children.

Link to access the full text: http://www.jogh.org/documents/2021/jogh-11-04015.pdf