Women’s Empowerment and Health Care Seeking Behavior in Bangladesh: Measurement and Model Fitting of Empowerment

The aim of the present study is to estimate the women empowerment index value in Bangladesh. Since women's empowerment is a matter of basic human rights which has during the last decade become a panacea for Third World development. For this purpose BDHS 2007 data have been used which reveals that empowerment level of women increases up to age group 30-34. Moreover, a mathematical model has been fitted to the mean score of women empowerment index which shows that women empowerment index follows a quadratic polynomial model. However, the role of women’s decision-making in reproductive health cannot be overemphasized. In this study, different dimensions of women’s decision-making autonomy and their relationship to maternal and child health-care are examined. The study shows that most autonomy indicators are important predictors of maternal and child health-care utilization although the strength and statistical significance vary by health-care utilization outcome and in some cases significance is lost when socio-economic indicators are held constant.