| Over the past several decades, research investigating the relationship between women's 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). For infants, a mother's control over mobility (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. Possible alternative measures of women's empowerment are discussed. |
