Women’s Empowerment as a Determinant of Child’s Nutrition: Evidence from a Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey

Authors

Vatana Chea, Cambodia University of Technology and Science (CamTech)Follow
Socheata Sar, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)Follow

Abstract

Does the empowerment of women improve a child’s long-term health outcome? Although the relationship seems intuitive in daily life, most studies done globally have found no association. This paper explicates the relationship between women’s empowerment and children’s malnutrition by taking Cambodia as a case study and adding new empirical evidence to the debate. Data were drawn from the Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2014, with a sample of 4,118 children nationwide. To measure children’s nutritional status, this study employed the WHO’s height-for-age (HFA) and weight-for-age (WFA) metrics, and at the same time, used the Survey-Based Women’s emPowERment Index (SWPER), which encompasses three well-recognized dimensions indicating a high degree of female financial independence and social autonomy to measure women’s empowerment. It was found that their empowerment has a significant and positive effect on children’s short- and long-term nutritional status.

DOI

10.56808/2730-3934.1013

First Page

1

Last Page

18

Recommended Citation

Chea, Vatana and Sar, Socheata (2023) "Women’s Empowerment as a Determinant of Child’s Nutrition: Evidence from a Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey," Journal of Demography: Vol. 39: Iss. 1, Article 1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.56808/2730-3934.1013
Available at: https://digital.car.chula.ac.th/jdm/vol39/iss1/1