The Geography of Gender Inequality

Sustainable development goals for gender equality: Extracting associations among the indicators of SDG 5 using numerical association rule mining

The United Nations prescribed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to various nations to provide enduring answers to widespread problems and to give long-lasting solutions to common issues being faced across the globe. SDG 5 in particular was aimed at minimizing gender inequality by employing 9 targets and 14 indicators. The indicators serve as a yardstick to measure the progress of each of the 9 targets. This research takes an in-depth look at the perspectives of SDG 5 –Gender Inequalities, its targets, and indicators. Furthermore, explanatory data analysis and numerical association rule mining alongside QuantMiner are applied to the generated Indian datasets on SDG 5 to extract patterns and associations among the fourteen indicators of SDG 5. The association rule mining carried out on the indicators reveals the pattern of association among these indicators. Legal provision for women and the rate of crimes against women have a perfect association of 100% while the association between legal provision for women and women who have experienced physical violence stands at 80%. The full relationships of all the 14 indicators are discussed extensively in the result and discussion section. Overall, it is established that these indicators are interdependent. This will make it easier for academics, the general public, and governmental and non-governmental organizations to understand the trends and form informed opinions on issues relating to gender inequality and SDG 5.

Are Women's Empowerment and Income Inequality Associated with Excess Weight in Latin American Cities?

While income gradients and gender inequalities in excess weight have been noted elsewhere, data from Latin American cities is lacking. We analyzed gender-specific associations between city-level women's empowerment and income inequality with individual-level overweight/obesity, assessing how these associations vary by individual education or living conditions within cities in Latin America. Data came from national surveys and censuses, and was compiled by the SALURBAL project (Urban Health in Latin America). The sample included 79,422 individuals (58.0% women), living in 538 sub-cities, 187 cities, and 8 countries. We used gender-stratified Poisson multilevel models to estimate the Prevalence Rate Ratios (PRR) for overweight/obesity (body mass index ≥ 25 kg/m²) per a unit change in city-level women's empowerment (proxied by a score that measures gender inequalities in employment and education) and income inequality (proxied by income-based Gini coefficient). We also tested whether individual education or sub-city living conditions modified such associations. Higher city labor women's empowerment (in women) and higher city Gini coefficient (in men) were associated with a lower prevalence of overweight/obesity (PRR = 0.97 (95%CI 0.94, 0.99) and PRR = 0.94 (95%CI 0.90, 0.97), respectively). The associations varied by individual education and sub-city living conditions. For labor women's empowerment, we observed weakened associations towards the null effect in women with lower education and in residents of sub-cities with worse living conditions (men and women). For the Gini coefficient, the association was stronger among men with primary education, and a negative association was observed in women with primary education. Our findings highlight the need for promoting equity-based policies and interventions to tackle the high prevalence of excess weight in Latin American cities.

Increased women’s empowerment and regional inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa between 1995 and 2015

Women’s empowerment is a fundamental human right but attempts to measure progress in this area have been limited. We used 142 nationally representative surveys to quantify empowerment in six domains (Intimate Partner Violence, Family Planning, Reproductive Healthcare, Employment, Education, and Decision-Making) for first-level subdivisions of all countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for three years (1995, 2005, and 2015). The possible value for each domain ranged between zero (worst) and one (best). The median value for employment decreased by 0.02, but it increased between 0.09 and 0.16 for the other domains. The average empowerment score increased from 0.44 to 0.53, but it remained low for Education (0.34). While progress was clear and consistent, it was uneven within and between countries, and Sahelian West Africa fell further behind. The expanded understanding of geographic variation and trends in women’s empowerment that we provide should be instrumental in efforts to improve women’s lives.

The Geography of Women's Empowerment in West Africa

Women's empowerment has been a subject of interest because of its relevance to development and demography, particularly in West Africa. Women's empowerment is typically conceptualized as an individual attribute of women, associated with socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. However, we hypothesize a geography of women's empowerment in the West African region, where empowerment processes are culturally situated and embedded in place. Such a geography would be observable via spatial associations over the region. This study uses Demographic and Health Survey data from 14 West African states over the past decade and an innovative multi-stage approach combining advanced statistical methods and spatial assessment to analyze indicators of women's empowerment and its spatial variability across the West African region. First we use a multivariate classification method to identify patterns in responses to empowerment questions and derive an empowerment classification scheme. Next we use these classifications to render a map of West Africa depicting the spatial variation of women's empowerment in the region. Ultimately, we fit multinomial structured geo-additive regression models to the data to analyze spatial variation in women's empowerment while controlling for certain socioeconomic-demographic characteristics. Our results demonstrate that women's responses to empowerment survey questions indeed vary geographically, even when controlling for individual socioeconomic-demographic attributes. This finding suggests that women's empowerment may relate to aspects of culture embedded in place in addition to the ways it relates to socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.

Quantifying the association of natal household wealth with women's early marriage in Nepal

BACKGROUND

Women's early marriage (<18 years) is a critical global health issue affecting 650 million women worldwide. It is associated with a range of adverse maternal physical and mental health outcomes, including early childbearing, child undernutrition and morbidity. Poverty is widely asserted to be the key risk factor driving early marriage. However, most studies do not measure wealth in the natal household, but instead, use marital household wealth as a proxy for natal wealth. Further research is required to understand the key drivers of early marriage.

METHODS

We investigated whether natal household poverty was associated with marrying early, independently of women's lower educational attainment and broader markers of household disadvantage. Data on natal household wealth (material asset score) for 2,432 women aged 18-39 years was used from the cluster-randomized Low Birth Weight South Asia Trial in lowland rural Nepal. Different early marriage definitions (<15, <16, <17 and <18 years) were used because most of our population marries below the conventional 18-year cut-off. Logistic mixed-effects models were fitted to estimate the probabilities, derived from adjusted Odds Ratios, of (a) marrying at different early ages for the full sample and for the uneducated women, and (b) being uneducated in the first place.

RESULTS

Women married at median age 15 years (interquartile range 3), and only 18% married ≥18 years. Two-thirds of the women were entirely uneducated. We found that, rather than poverty, women's lower education was the primary factor associated with early marriage, regardless of how 'early' is defined. Neither poverty nor other markers of household disadvantage were associated with early marriage at any age in the uneducated women. However, poverty was associated with women being uneducated.

CONCLUSION

When assets are measured in the natal household in this population, there is no support for the conventional hypothesis that household poverty is associated with daughters' early marriage, but it is associated with not going to school. We propose that improving access to free education would both reduce early marriage and have broader benefits for maternal and child health and gender equality.

Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator

Gender equality is a major problem that places women at a disadvantage thereby stymieing economic growth and societal advancement. In the last two decades, extensive research has been conducted on gender related issues, studying both their antecedents and consequences. However, existing literature reviews fail to provide a comprehensive and clear picture of what has been studied so far, which could guide scholars in their future research. Our paper offers a scoping review of a large portion of the research that has been published over the last 22 years, on gender equality and related issues, with a specific focus on business and economics studies. Combining innovative methods drawn from both network analysis and text mining, we provide a synthesis of 15,465 scientific articles. We identify 27 main research topics, we measure their relevance from a semantic point of view and the relationships among them, highlighting the importance of each topic in the overall gender discourse. We find that prominent research topics mostly relate to women in the workforce-e.g., concerning compensation, role, education, decision-making and career progression. However, some of them are losing momentum, and some other research trends-for example related to female entrepreneurship, leadership and participation in the board of directors-are on the rise. Besides introducing a novel methodology to review broad literature streams, our paper offers a map of the main gender-research trends and presents the most popular and the emerging themes, as well as their intersections, outlining important avenues for future research.

Women's empowerment for abortion and family planning decision making among marginalized women in Nepal: a mixed method study

Background

Women’s empowerment is multidimensional. Women’s education, employment, income, reproductive healthcare decision making, household level decision making and social status are vital for women’s empowerment. Nepal is committed to achieving women empowerment and gender equality, which directly affects the reproductive health issues. This can be achieved by addressing the issues of the poor and marginalized communities. In this context, we aimed to find the association of women’s empowerment with abortion and family planning decision making among marginalized women in Nepal.

Methods

A cross sectional study was conducted at selected municipalities of Morang district of Nepal from February 2017 to March 2018. A mixed method approach was used, where 316 married marginalized women of reproductive age (15–49 years) and 15 key informant interviews from representative healthcare providers and local leaders were taken. From key informants, data were analysed using the thematic framework method. Findings obtained from two separate analyses were drawn together and meta inferences were made.

Results

Women’s empowerment was above average, at 50.6%. Current use of modern contraceptives were more among below average empowerment groups (p 0.041, OR 0.593 C.I. 0.36–0.98). We could not find any statistically significant differences among levels of women’s empowerment, including those women with abortion knowledge (p 0.549); family planning knowledge (p 0.495) and women’s decision for future use of modern contraceptives (p 0.977). Most key informants reported that unsafe abortion was practiced.

Conclusions

Women’s empowerment has no direct role for family planning and abortion decision making at marginalized communities of Morang district of Nepal. However, different governmental and non-governmental organizations influence woman for seeking health care services and family planning in rural community of Nepal irrespective of empowerment status.

An Evolving Agricultural Extension Model for Lasting Impact: How Willing Are Tanzanian Farmers to Pay for Extension Services?

Community-based extension services (CES) are vital for improving farmers’ livelihoods, but most of them face a challenge of sustainability after phasing out of the externally funded initiatives that they are part of. This study estimated farmer’s willingness to pay (WTP) for four types of agricultural extension services (AES) in the cereals’ value chains provided as a part of two United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Feed the Future initiatives in Tanzania. Data were collected from 595 smallholder cereal farmers using a primary survey in four districts of the Southern Highlands. We implemented a double-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation method. Average WTP figures ranged from 20,000 to 24,000 TZS (8–10 USD) depending on the type of AES. Several socioeconomic and agriculture-related variables influenced smallholders’ WTP for the extension services. This research explored the feasibility of a farmer-led model as a pathway to delink extension services from public and donor funding to achieve sustainable rural development. Farmers place a monetary value on extension services indicating that policymakers and practitioners should make further efforts to enhance a community’s ability to achieve self-reliance through investments in CES.

Social Determinants and Disparities in Active Aging Among Older Taiwanese

This study assesses equity in active aging across social determinants among older Taiwanese. The data were collected from face-to-face interviews with adults aged 55 years or more in Taiwan in 2017 (n = 738). A total of 30 individual-level Taiwan active aging indicators were chosen, and the relationship between social determinants and active aging indicators were analyzed by logistic regression models. Women were more likely to participate in volunteering and other social groups and in lifelong learning activities, whereas men were more likely to be employed, to engage in physical activity, to feel safe from violence, and to use preventive care. Higher education was related to higher employment, social participation, independent living, lifelong learning, and a lower likelihood of poverty and severe cognitive impairment. Those living in rural areas were more likely to be employed, perform physical activity, feel physically safe, have better mental well-being, and have higher social respect and social integration ratings, whereas living in urban areas was related to greater access to medical care, owning assets, less severe cognitive impairment, greater likelihood of using information and communications technology, higher level of education, and higher access to convenient transportation. The significant disparities that exist in active aging may suggest inequality.

Women empowerment as an enabling factor of contraceptive use in sub-Saharan Africa: a multilevel analysis of cross-sectional surveys of 32 countries

BACKGROUND

Women's empowerment has a direct impact on maternal and child health care service utilization. Large scope measurement of contraceptive use in several dimensions is paramount, considering the nature of empowerment processes as it relates to improvements in maternal health status. However, multicountry and multilevel analysis of the measurement of women's empowerment indicators and their associations with contraceptive use is vital to make a substantial intervention in the Sub-Saharan Africa context. Therefore, we investigated the impact of women's empowerment on contraceptive use among women in sub-Saharan Africa countries.

METHODS

Secondary data involving 474,622 women of reproductive age (15-49 years) from the current Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) in 32 Sub-Saharan Africa region was used in this study. Contraceptive use was the primary outcome variable. Multilevel analysis was conducted to examine the impact of women's empowerment on contraceptive use. Percentages were conducted in univariate analysis. Furthermore, multilevel logistic regression models were used to analyze the association between individual, compositional and contextual factors of contraceptive use.

RESULTS

Results showed large disparities in the number of women who reportedly ever use contraceptive methods; this range from as low as 6.7% in Chad and as much as 72% in Namibia. More than one-third of the respondents had no formal education and more than half were active labor force. Contraceptive use was significantly more common among respondents from the richest households (28.5% versus 18.9%). Various components of women's empowerment were positively significantly associated with contraceptive use after adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic factors. There was a significant variation in the odds of contraceptive use across the 32 countries (σ2= 1.12, 95% CrI 0.67 to 1.87) and across the neighbourhoods (σ2= 0.95, 95% CrI 0.92 to 0.98).

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that an increase in contraceptive use and by better extension maternal health care services utilization can be achieved by enhancing women's empowerment. Also, an increase in decision-making autonomy by women, their participation in labour force, reduction in abuse and violence and improved knowledge level are all key issues to be considered. Health-related policies should address inequalities in women's empowerment, education and economic status which would yield benefits to individuals, families, and societies in general.

Reaching substantive female representation among decision-makers: A qualitative research study of gender-related experiences from the health sector in Mozambique

Background

Achieving significant female representation in government at decision-making levels has been identified as a key step towards achieving gender equality. In 2015, women held 39.6% of parliamentary seats in Mozambique, which is above the benchmark of 30% that has been suggested as the turning point for minority representation to move from token status to having a sizable impact. We undertook a study to identify gender-related barriers and facilitators to improving women-centered policies in the health sector.

Methods

We conducted in-depth interviews with 39 individuals (32 women, 7 men) involved at a senior level in policy making or implementation of woman-centric policies within the Mozambique Ministry of Health and affiliated institutions. We used a semi-structured interview guide that included questions on difficulties and facilitating factors encountered in the policy making process, and the perceived role of gender in this process. We used both deductive and inductive analysis approaches, starting with a set of pre-identified themes and expanding this to include themes that emerged during coding.

Results

Our data suggest two main findings: (1) the women who participated in our study generally do not report feeling discrimination in the workplace and (2) senior health sector perceive women to be more personally attuned to women-centric issues than men. Within our specific sample, we found little to suggest that gender discrimination is a problem professionally for female decision-makers in Mozambique. However, these findings should be contextualized using an intersectional lens with recognition of the important difference between descriptive versus substantive female representation, and whether “percentage of women” is truly the best metric for gaging commitment to gender equality at the policy making level.

Conclusions

Mozambique’s longstanding significant representation of women may have led to creating an environment that leads to positive experiences for female decision-makers in the government. However, while the current level of female representation should be celebrated, it does not negate the need for continued focus on female representation in decision-making positions.

Prevalence and determinants of terminated and unintended pregnancies among married women: analysis of pooled cross-sectional surveys in Nigeria

Background

Induced pregnancy termination and unintended pregnancy are two commonly occurring phenomena in the discipline of women’s reproductive health. In the present study, we explored cross-sectional data pooled from three rounds of Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) to understand the trends of prevalence of pregnancy termination and unintended pregnancy as well as the interplay of various sociodemographic and economic factors whereby these health issues occur.

Methods

Study participants were 79 825 currently married women aged 15–49 years. Data were collected from NDHS conducted in 2003, 2008 and 2013. Outcome variables were self-reported history of pregnancy termination and unintended pregnancy for the last birth. Data were analysed using descriptive and multivariable logistic regression methods.

Results

Mean (±SD) age of the respondents was 28.7 years (±9.6). The overall prevalence of pregnancy termination and unintended pregnancy were about 11%. Older women had increase in the odds of terminated pregnancies, compared with women aged 15–19 years, while the converse was true for unintended pregnancy in the adjusted model. Educated women had significant higher odds of terminated and unintended pregnancies compared with women with no formal education. Women with higher wealth index were more likely to have unintended and terminated pregnancies after adjusting for other covariates. Remarkably, women who had unintended pregnancy were 1.47 times as likely to have terminated pregnancy compared with those who had no unintended pregnancy (OR=1.47; 95% CI 1.30 to 1.65). Experience of intimate partner violence had significant association with terminated and unintended pregnancies.

Conclusion

The findings of this study showed that unintended and terminated pregnancies remain part of the issues to be addressed if the goal of ensuring healthy lives and promoting the well-being for all at all ages must be met. Stakeholders in Nigerian healthcare system should protect the lives of women who are vulnerable to the fatal consequences of unsafe abortion, especially in cases of rape, sexual assault, incest and where continuing a pregnancy would endanger the lives of women.