Women’s Empowerment and Dietary Diversity: Differential Impacts of Agency Open Access

Abstract

The relationship between women’s empowerment and nutritional outcomes is understudied and the limited existing research has produced mixed results. This study’s aim was to further assess the relationship between empowerment and nutritional status using the recently developed project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI). The pro-WEAI uses Kabeer’s (1999) empowerment framework in which resources enable women to have agency (the ability to make decisions), through which outcomes such as improved nutritional status can be achieved. The pro-WEAI serves as a standardized empowerment measurement tool and assesses components of women’s empowerment across three sub-domains of agency: intrinsic (power within), instrumental (power to), and collective (power with). Cross-sectional data was collected on women’s empowerment, women’s dietary diversity, as well as household and individual demographic characteristics. A multi-level, mixed effects linear regression model was used to assess the relationship between women’s empowerment (including individual sub-domains of agency) and women’s dietary diversity (measured using the Minimum Dietary Diversity-Women, 10 food-group indicator). Results indicated that intrinsic agency was positively associated with dietary diversity (β=0.14; 95% CI 0.02 – 0.26). The intrinsic agency sub-domains that contributed to this association were finding intimate partner violence not acceptable (β=0.32; 95% CI 0.04 – 0.59) and possessing autonomy in income (β=0.27; 95% CI 0.04 – 0.51). Women’s overall empowerment score, as calculated using the pro-WEAI, was not associated with dietary diversity. These findings suggest a relationship between women’s agency and women’s dietary diversity and highlight that sub-domains of women’s empowerment may differentially correlate to women’s dietary diversity, even when overall empowerment may not. Further research should prioritize women’s nutritional status as an outcome of interest and continue to refine empowerment measures such as the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index to elucidate the true nature of this relationship.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

 

I: ABSTRACT..................................................................................1

 

II: BACKGROUND...........................................................................2

A. Women’s and Children’s Undernutrition............................................2

B. The Role of Women’s Empowerment in Undernutrition.......................4

C. Current Literature............................................................................8

D. Research Objective and Aims............................................................8

 

III: METHODS...............................................................................9

Study Design.......................................................................................9

Study Population................................................................................10

Data Sources and Sampling.................................................................10

Data Measures...................................................................................11

Data Analysis....................................................................................12

 

IV: RESULTS...............................................................................15

Descriptive Analyses.........................................................................15

Bivariate Analyses............................................................................18

Regression Analyses.........................................................................19

 

V: DISCUSSION..........................................................................21

 

VI: PUBLIC HEALTH IMPLICATIONS............................................24

 

APPENDIX................................................................................25

Pro-WEAI survey.............................................................................25

 

REFERENCES............................................................................49

About this Master's Thesis

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School	Rollins School of Public Health
Department	Epidemiology
Subfield / Discipline	Global Epidemiology - MPH & MSPH
Degree	M.P.H.
Submission	Master's Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Health Sciences, Epidemiology
Keyword	empowerment nutrition public health
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Julie Gazmararian, Emory University
Committee Members	Sheela Sinharoy, Emory University

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