Women’s empowerment and the use of antenatal care services: analysis of demographic health surveys in five Southeast Asian countries

ABSTRACT

Women’s empowerment and use of antenatal care (ANC) services remain important in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). This assessed the association between women’s empowerment and ANC use in five ASEAN countries. ANC information for the most recent births of 29,444 currently married women in the last 5 years preceding the Demographic Health Survey was analyzed (Cambodia [DHS2014], Indonesia [DHS2012], Myanmar [DHS2015-2016], Philippines [DHS2013], and Timor-Leste [DHS2009]). Analyses used multiple logistic regression adjusting for complex sampling designs. The number of ANC visits was positively associated with labor-force participation in Cambodia, the Philippines, and Timor-Leste; with disagreement with justification for wife beating and women’s knowledge level in Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar; and with women’s decision-making power in Cambodia and Indonesia. The association of women’s empowerment variables with timing of the first ANC visit was not as evident as that for number of ANC visits. Compared to adult mothers, adolescent mothers with medium knowledge level had less odds of attending ≥4 ANC in Cambodia, and adolescent mothers with the poorest labor-force participation had lower odds of attending the first ANC early in Myanmar. Tailored policy on women’s improved access to labor force and health information in each country may be needed to improve ANC use.

KEYWORDS:

• Antenatal care
• women’s empowerment
• labor force participation
• decision-making power
• women’s disagreement toward wife beating
• knowledge level

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Wenjuan Wang and Shireen Assaf as mentors and Bwalya Bupe Bwalyaa as co-mentor of DHS Fellows 2017 for providing technical support and insights on the analysis. The authors also would like to thank Ramu Bishwakarma for invaluable comments. This work was part of DHS Fellows program funded by USAID and implemented by ICF. DHS Fellows was funded by USAID and implemented by ICF.

Notes

1. Countdown to 2015 is a global agenda to achieve the targets of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for accelerating and ending preventable maternal, newborn, and child deaths.