Socio Economic Resource Accessibility on Maternal and Child Health Care in Bangladesh

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.