Women's Empowerment and Health in Accra, Ghana

Women’s empowerment is vital to sustainable development and the realization of human rights for all.  Gains in gender equality, represented by variables such as increased educational access for women and lowered fertility, have tended to correlate with demographic transitions and overall health improvements.  In the evolving urban context of Accra, Ghana, empowerment may be one of the most critical determinants of women’s health.  Where prior data analysis in Accra revealed that socio-cultural attributes explained more variability in health than access to basic services, it is crucial to understand the potential for socially-constructed norms to facilitate or hinder health attainment.   There is an abundance of literature on women’s empowerment, yet there is neither a coherent theory on how gender inequalities affect health, nor are there any standard indices to determine levels of female empowerment.  Thus, a major contribution of this research is the proposal and statistical validation of (1) an original conceptual model of women’s empowerment in Ghana and (2) an empowerment index.  To execute the statistical validation, I have consolidated survey data from the 2008 Ghana DHS and the 2010 Women's Health Survey of Accra to test the following hypothesis: the higher the level of empowerment, the greater the rate of health care seeking behavior, and the lower the incidence of illness for women, including socio-medical problems, such as domestic violence.