Quisumbing Agnes R, Sproule Kathryn, Martinez Elena M, Malapit Hazel
International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC, USA.
Sproule Research Group, CA, USA.
Food Policy. 2021 Apr;100:102001. doi: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2020.102001.
Although women's empowerment and gender equality are often linked with better maternal and child nutrition outcomes, recent systematic reviews find inconclusive evidence. This paper applies a comparable methodology to data on the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), an internationally-validated measure based on interviews of women and men within the same household, from six countries in Africa and Asia to identify which dimensions of women's empowerment are related to household-, woman-, and child-level dietary and nutrition outcomes. We examine relationships between women's empowerment and household-level dietary diversity; women's dietary diversity and BMI; and child-related outcomes, controlling for woman, child, and household characteristics. We also test for differential associations of women's empowerment with nutrition outcomes for boys and girls. We find few significant associations between the aggregate empowerment scores and nutritional outcomes. The women's empowerment score is positively associated only with child HAZ, while lower intrahousehold inequality is associated with a higher likelihood of exclusive breastfeeding and higher HAZ but with lower BMI. However, analysis of the subdomain indicators finds more significant associations, suggesting that tradeoffs exist among different dimensions of empowerment. Women's empowerment accounts for a small share of the variance in nutritional outcomes, with household wealth and country-level factors accounting for the largest share of the variation in household and women's dietary diversity. In contrast, most of the variation in child outcomes comes from child age. Improving nutritional outcomes requires addressing the underlying determinants of poor nutrition in addition to empowering women and improving gender equality.
尽管妇女赋权和性别平等通常与更好的母婴营养结果相关联，但最近的系统评价发现证据并不确凿。本文采用一种可比的方法，对来自非洲和亚洲六个国家的农业领域妇女赋权指数（WEAI）数据进行分析，该指数是一项基于对同一家庭中的男性和女性进行访谈的国际验证指标，以确定妇女赋权的哪些维度与家庭、妇女和儿童层面的饮食及营养结果相关。我们研究妇女赋权与家庭层面饮食多样性之间的关系；妇女的饮食多样性与体重指数之间的关系；以及与儿童相关的结果，并控制妇女、儿童和家庭的特征。我们还测试了妇女赋权与男孩和女孩营养结果之间的差异关联。我们发现总体赋权得分与营养结果之间几乎没有显著关联。妇女赋权得分仅与儿童身高别体重呈正相关，而家庭内部较低的不平等与纯母乳喂养的可能性较高、身高别体重较高但体重指数较低相关。然而，对子领域指标的分析发现了更显著的关联，这表明在赋权的不同维度之间存在权衡。妇女赋权在营养结果的方差中占比很小，家庭财富和国家层面的因素在家庭和妇女饮食多样性的变化中占比最大。相比之下，儿童结果的大部分变化来自儿童年龄。改善营养结果除了要赋权妇女和促进性别平等外，还需要解决营养不良的根本决定因素。
