Reproductive rights approach to reproductive health in developing countries

Background

Research on reproductive health in developing countries focuses mostly on the role of economic development on various components of reproductive health. Cross-sectional and empirical research studies in particular on the effects of non-economic factors such as reproductive rights remain few and far between.

Objective

This study investigates the influence of two components of an empowerment strategy, gender equality, and reproductive rights on women's reproductive health in developing countries. The empowerment strategy for improving reproductive health is theoretically situated on a number of background factors such as economic and social development.

Design

Cross-national socioeconomic and demographic data from a number of international organizations on 142 developing countries are used to test a model of reproductive rights and reproductive health.

Results

The findings suggest that both economic and democratic development have significant positive effects on levels of gender equality. The level of social development plays a prominent role in promoting reproductive rights. It is found that reproductive rights channel the influences of social structural factors and gender equality on reproductive health.

• globalization
• reproductive rights
• gender equality
• reproductive health
• millennium development goals
• social development
• abortion rights
• developing countries

Notes

¹To assess the reliability of this approach, we conducted a sensitivity analysis. We dropped about 10% of the cases for each variable with known values and re-estimated the values using EM algorithm. We then compared the known values with estimated values using EM algorithm. We counted all re-estimated values to be acceptable if the estimated value was less than 20% of the actual value. Using this method, in all instances of single imputation, more than 70% of the cases were accurately predicted.

²We repeated the test of the SEM model with Equatorial Guinea dropped from the study. The magnitudes of the relationships among variables in the model changed only very slightly. The level of significance of all the paths remained the same across the two models with and without Equatorial Guinea.