| dc.description.abstract | Although Bangladesh graduated recently from the categories of least developed
countries, it still lacks proper health care facilities and financial stability for the
women across the country. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need of
women’s economic and social empowerment for accessing maternal and child health
care efficiently. It uses a cross-sectional nationally representative Bangladesh
Demographic Health Survey, 2017-2018. In this study, maternal and child health care
are assessed through the maternal body mass index and birth weight of children,
respectively. Economic empowerment and social empowerment are assessed through
the working status of women, wealth owned, education and health care decision
making autonomy. Linear regression models are used to examine these relationships.
The estimations show that working women who earn money on average have 6
percent higher birth weight babies compared to those who are unemployed (ceteris
paribus). Women from the lower wealth index are highly susceptible to being
undernourished. Self and combined with partner health care decision making power
and education has a strong positive association with birth weight of child and body
mass index of mother. Hence, this study highly recommends policy makers to promote
such policies that ensure equal workplace opportunities, higher maternal education,
and quality health care. | en_US |
