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The purpose of this paper is to understand the effects of the husband’s migration on wives’ decision-making autonomy.

The study setting is Magway Region of central Myanmar where poverty has driven adult males to migrate overseas. The study hypothesizes that the absence of husbands due to international migration leads to changes in the roles and decision-making power of left-behind wives. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 22 villages of Pakkoku district, Magway Region, using the multi-stage random sampling method. The study sample included 205 migrant’s wives and 196 non-migrant’s wives.

The international migration of husbands has a strong and positive impact on left-behind wives’ autonomy independent of individual characteristics and household social and economic status. In addition, the findings show that the number of children and household wealth are positively associated with women’s autonomy, whereas household size shows a negative association.

It is possible that there will be unmeasured selection factors such as unsuccessful migration as it might influence both husbands’ migration status and women’s autonomy. Cross-sectional data also invite a question about the causal relationship. For example, it might be possible that women with high autonomy may be more likely to encourage their husband to work abroad. So, the relationship might be the other way around. A further longitudinal study is also needed to describe detail explanation about the causal influence of left-behind women’s autonomy.

Successful international migration has a impact not only on women’s autonomy but also on household economic status in central rural Myanmar.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of married couples regarding women’s autonomy and the association of these perceptions with the subjective well-being of wives in Lao PDR.

The study was conducted in semi-urban communities in Vientiane Capital of Lao PDR. Data were collected from 198 matched married couples with children under 12 years of age. Cross-tabulation analysis and multivariate regression analysis were used to assess the association between couple’s perceptions regarding women’s autonomy and the subjective well-being of wives.

Results from regression analysis revealed a positive association between the self-reported autonomy of wives and their subjective well-being. In contrast, neither the husband’s perceptions nor the couple’s concordance regarding the autonomy of the wife was associated with the level of the wife’s subjective well-being.

The survey was conducted in four small communities in Vientiane Capital. Thus, larger and more representative studies covering the entire country would be preferable for future policy orientation.

The study sites belong to the Lao-Lum group, which follows a matrilineal inheritance system under which wives generally enjoy a relatively higher social status than do women elsewhere in the world. The findings suggest that, even in women-centered settings, interventions aimed at increasing a woman’s perception of her household decision-making autonomy can improve her subjective well-being.

The purpose of this paper is to describe what it is like to be a midwife in the professionally isolated and marginalised arena of home birth in Ireland and to explore whether the organisation of home birth services and professional discourse might be undermining the autonomy of home birth midwives.

This paper is drawn from auto-ethnographic field work, with 18 of the 21 self-employed community midwives (SECMs) offering home birth support to women in Ireland from 2006 to 2009. The data presented are derived from field notes of participant observations and from interviews digitally recorded in the field.

Home birth midwives must navigate isolated professional practice and negotiate when and how to interface with mainstream hospital services. The midwives talk of the dilemma of competing discourses about birth. Decisions to transfer to hospital in labour is fraught with concerns about the woman's and the midwife's autonomy. Hospital transfers crystallise midwives’ sense of professional vulnerability.

Maternity services organisation in Ireland commits virtually no resources to community midwifery. Home birth is almost entirely dependent upon a small number of SECMs. Although there is a “national home birth service”, it is not universally and equitably available, even to those deemed eligible. Furthermore, restrictions to the professional indemnification of home birth midwives, effectively criminalises midwives who would attend certain women. Home birth, already a marginal practice, is at real risk of becoming regulated out of existence.

This paper brings new insight into the experiences of midwives practicing at the contested boundaries of contemporary maternity services. It reveals the inappropriateness of a narrowly professional paradigm for midwifery. Disciplinary control of individuals by professions may countermand claimed “service” ideologies.

This study adopts three dimensions of women’s empowerment: (1) relative education empowerment, (2) women's autonomy in decision-making and (3) domestic violence to examine the effect of women’s empowerment on household food security in Ghana.

The study employed the generalised ordered logit model (GOLM) and dominance analysis using a sample of 1,017 households from the seventh round of Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS7).

The findings from the study revealed that women’s empowerment proxied by relative years of schooling and women's decision-making were important indicators for improving household food security. Further, there exist varying dimensions of women’s empowerment in households, and these dimensions have a significant effect on the state of food security of households.

There are a number of studies on the effect of women's empowerment on food security. However, this study contributes to the literature by examining the varying effects of different dimensions of women’s empowerment on food security. This provides policymakers with a guide that looks at different levels of women’s empowerment and the combinations of women's empowerment dimensions that contribute for reducing food insecurity.

Since the late eighteenth century, American men have supported women's equality. (see Kimmel and Mosmiller, 1992). Even before the first Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York heralded the birth of the organized women's movement in 1848, American men had begun to argue in favor of women's rights. That celebrated radical, Thomas Paine, for example, mused in 1775 that any formal declaration of independence from England should include women, since women have, as he put it, “an equal right to virtue.”(Paine, [1775] 1992, 63–66). Other reformers, like Benjamin Rush and John Neal articulated claims for women's entry into schools and public life. Charles Brockden Brown, America's first professional novelist, penned a passionate plea for women's equality in Alcuin(1798).

The purpose of this paper is to present a three-part framework of information engagement for situated gynecological cancers. These particular cancers intertwine with medicalization of sexuality and gender power dynamics, situating information behaviors and interactions in women’s socio-health perceptions. Using Kavanagh and Broom’s feminist risk framework, the framework establishes functional and temporal parameters for sense-making and information engagement.

This paper employs a structured, reiterative literature review with emergent thematic analysis. Nine indices from medicine, information studies, and sociology were searched using combinations of five terms on cervical cancer (CC) and 14 terms on information engagement in the title, abstract, and subject fields. Results were examined on a reiterative basis to identify emergent themes pertaining to knowledge development and information interactions.

Environmentally, social stigma and gender roles inhibit information seeking; normalizing CC helps integrate medical, moral, and sexual information. Internally, living with the dichotomy between “having” a body and “being” a body requires high-trust information resources that are presented gradually. Actively, choosing to make or cede medical decision-making requires personally relevant information delivered in the form of concrete facts and explanations.

The study covers only one country.

This study’s information framework and suggestions for future research encourage consideration of gender power dynamics, medicalization of sexuality, and autonomy in women’s health information interactions.

This paper explores the relationship between married women's intrahousehold decision-making participation and marital gender roles, next to factors suggested in the household bargaining literature. Additionally, the authors investigate whether women's employment carries the same importance for decision-making participation as contributions to household incomes.

Using 2011/2012 Nicaraguan Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), the authors estimate multinomial logistic regressions for eight decision-making domains, analyzing three levels of decision-making: wife-dominant or sole decisions, joint decision-making (with the partner) and decision-making by someone else. The authors create an additive index for measuring internalized marital gender roles.

Women's intrahousehold decision-making participation is explained differently depending on the decision-making area and level of participation. Women with a better relative position vis-à-vis partners and not following patriarchal gender roles are more likely to make decisions jointly with their partners, but not alone. Women's age and educational level are the strongest predictors in the analysis. Women's employment reduces their decision-making participation in children's disciplining and daily cooking-related decisions.

It focuses on married women only, while marital status might be a determinant of decision-making itself and left out the contribution of unearned incomes.

Interventions aimed at increasing women's intrahousehold decision-making participation should not only focus on economic endowments but also comprehend the gendered dynamics governing intrahousehold allocation.

The study incorporates quantitative measures of marital gender roles in the study of intrahousehold decision-making. It also contributes to the literature with insights from contexts where women's involvement in employment increased against a background of patriarchal gender roles.

This study aimed to identify the proportion and factors influencing the use of maternal health services (MHS) in rural Thawang, Rolpa, Nepal.

This was a community-based cross-sectional study conducted among 417 mothers who had given birth in the previous two years. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was applied to identify associations and predictors.

The results showed that the use of maternal health services was 50.8%. Adjusting for all other factors in the final model, age group 25–30 years (AOR: 2.30; 95% CI: 1.199–4.422), spouse communication (AOR: 7.31; 95% CI: 2.574–20.791), high accessibility (AOR: 2.552, 95% CI: 1.402–4.643) and high affordability (AOR: 10.89; 95% CI: 4.66–25.445) were significant predictors.

This is a community-based cross-sectional study, and hence cannot establish causal relationships. The research was conducted in a limited rural area mid-Western Nepal, and this may limit the generalization of results to other settings of the country.

This research supports to local level government and district health authority to develop and implement need based action to increase maternal health service in the local context.

Underutilization of maternal health services is the result of socioeconomic dynamics, poor access to health services and other physical developments. To increase utilization of maternal health services in rural areas, there is a need to tackle the root cause of health inequality such as reducing poverty, increasing female education, involving women in employment and increasing access to health as a priority development agenda by government authorities. This research supports local level government and district health authorities to develop and implement needs-based action to increase MHS in the local context.

This study aims to estimate the degree and nature of socioeconomic-related inequalities in sexual and reproductive health in Ghana and further assesses causes of these inequalities using decomposition technique. The authors assess the contribution of personal characteristics of the woman including access to health information and health seeking behaviours, household and locational characteristics to inequalities in sexual and reproductive health in Ghana. The study uses data from the three rounds of the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey conducted in 2003, 2008 and 2014.

Two indicators – use of modern contraceptives and intention to use modern contraceptives – are used to measure sexual and reproductive health of sexually active women. A wealth index, based on household ownership of assets, consumer goods and living conditions, is used as a measure of socioeconomic status. The paper estimates a concentration index to the relationship between cumulative health and socioeconomic rank. Paper procedures to apply decomposition techniques to determine the causes of socioeconomic inequalities in health based on a linear health regression model.

The study finds evidence of varying degrees of socioeconomic-related inequalities in sexual and reproductive health indicators. Specifically, the study finds that whilst use of modern contraceptives was concentrated among women in households with high socioeconomic status in 2003 and 2008, modern contraceptive use was prevalent among women in low socioeconomic status households in 2014. Equally, the study finds significant pro-poor inequalities in the intentions to use modern contraceptives in 2003 and 2014. The degree of socioeconomic inequalities in the intentions to use modern contraceptives increased between 2003 and 2014.

There is the lack of evidence on the degree, nature and causes of socioeconomic-related inequalities, which in tend impedes the design and implementation of sexual and reproductive health policies targeted at vulnerable and under-served populations. In addition, there is the need to study inequalities in health over time to monitor progress of health delivery systems towards equitable and universal coverage and understand the evolution of the determinants.

The paper aims to find out how far the size of household landholding directs patriarchal traits and thus influence women's autonomy.

The study used a two-part methodology. The first part provides theoretical background based on existing literature on women's autonomy and related information in formulating the “landholding-patriarchy hypotheses”. The second part of this study evaluates the empirical evidences of the association between the size of household landholding and women's autonomy.

Results indicate considerable variation in women's autonomy with the size of their household landholding: women's autonomy decreases with increasing size of household landholding. Evidence suggests that landholding directs patriarchal traits, as manifested in a reasonable influence on women's autonomy in rural India.

The paper innovates a means to understand the contributing factors to lowering women's autonomy, thus explore the relevance of “landholding-patriarchy hypothesis”.