Leight Jessica, Pedehombga Abdoulaye, Ganaba Rasmané, Gelli Aulo
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), USA.
AfricSanté, Burkina Faso.
SSM Ment Health. 2022 Dec;2:100160. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmmh.2022.100160.
Though there is a wide array of evidence that women's empowerment is associated with more positive health and nutritional outcomes for women and children, evidence around the relationship with mental health or subjective well-being remains relatively limited. The objective of this paper is to explore this relationship in longitudinal data from rural Burkina Faso.
We analyze the association between empowerment measured using the project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI), and two additional outcomes of interest: stress (measured using the SRQ-20) and maternal depression (measured using the Edinburgh scale for post-partum depression). The analysis employs both cross-sectional specifications and panel specifications conditional on individual fixed effects.
We find evidence of substantial negative correlations between the empowerment score and maternal stress and depression measured using both continuous and binary variables. This relationship seems to be particularly driven by self-efficacy and respect among household members, where higher scores have negative associations with depression and stress that are both large in magnitude and precisely estimated.
Enhanced mental health may be another channel for a positive effect of empowerment on women's welfare.
尽管有大量证据表明，妇女赋权与妇女和儿童更积极的健康及营养结果相关，但与心理健康或主观幸福感之间关系的证据仍然相对有限。本文的目的是利用布基纳法索农村地区的纵向数据来探究这种关系。
我们分析了使用项目层面的农业领域妇女赋权指数（pro-WEAI）衡量的赋权与另外两个感兴趣的结果之间的关联：压力（使用SRQ-20进行测量）和产后抑郁（使用爱丁堡产后抑郁量表进行测量）。分析采用了横截面设定以及基于个体固定效应的面板设定。
我们发现，赋权得分与使用连续变量和二元变量测量的产后压力及抑郁之间存在显著的负相关证据。这种关系似乎尤其受到自我效能感和家庭成员间尊重的驱动，其中得分越高与抑郁和压力的负相关在幅度上越大且估计精确。
心理健康状况的改善可能是赋权对妇女福利产生积极影响的另一个途径。
