Women’s Empowerment and Antenatal Care Utilization in Pakistan

This study aimed at examining the role of women’s empowerment in antenatal care utilization among married women in Pakistan. The population of the study was based on secondary data from the Pakistan Demographic Health Survey 2017-18. A sample of 6,996 married women was selected, and the women reported their antenatal visits in the last five years. The descriptive, Chi-square, bivariate, and multivariate logistic regression methods were used for data analysis through SPSS. The results of the study showed that only 15% of women had adequate antenatal visits. Bivariate analysis showed that women who had higher income status, higher education, and were working in managerial positions had significantly adequate antenatal health care (P<0.05). Multivariate logistic regression results showed that women who had the power of decision making in their health care alone (OD-1.47; 95% CI1.04, 2.10), decided their mobility along with their husbands (OD-1.83; 95% CI-1.46, 2.30), had control over resources, their own mobile (OD-1.31; 95% CI-1.11, 1.55) and bank accounts (OD-1.75; 95% CI-1.37, 2.22), access to information resources—such as internet use (OD-1.84; 95% CI-1.53, 2.21), reading the newspaper (OD-1.18; 95% CI-1.00, 1.39), and watching TV (OD-1.69; 95% CI-1.38, 2.07)—and did not justify wifebeating (OD-1.42; 95% CI-1.20, 1.68) had adequate antenatal care. To enhance the maternal health of women, the government should take initiatives to formulate policies that improve women’s status especially among those who had no education, had less decision-making power, lack of economic resources, and faced violence. 1 Siddique is a PhD Scholar in the Department of Gender Studies, University of Punjab Lahore, Pakistan. He is working as Lecturer in the Department of Gender Studies, Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan, Pakistan. He has presented/published 8 conference papers and 9 research papers. 2 Dr. Raana Malik is working as Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Gender Studies, University of the Punjab Lahore, Pakistan. She has a Post Doctorate in Gender Studies from the University of Oslo, Norway where she won the HEC post-doc fellowship. She has 40 peer reviewed national and international research papers and 30 conference papers. She has been awarded many international fellowships such as the American State Department Fellowship for 4 months residential stay for research and the ILO two months residency fellowship in Italy. 3 Dr. Irum Batool is working as an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, Bahauddin Zakariyya University Multan, Pakistan. She completed her PhD from the University of Hull, UK, under a Faculty Development Scholarship. Her research grapples with issues pertaining to human cognition, psychological and gender issues, and problematic internet and social media use particularly in relation to its effects on psychological health. 4 Dr. Ahmed Usman is currently an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Social and Cultural Studies, University of the Punjab Lahore. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Leeds, UK. Dr. Usman has over 60 research papers in peer-reviewed national and international journals and 75 conference papers. He has been awarded several national and international awards including PHEC Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, 2017 and the Scholar-in-residence Fellowship, 2016 by the US Department of State for Arizona State University. 5 Dr. Salman Bin Naeem is an Associate Professor in the Department of Library & Information Science, the Islamia University of Bahawalpur. He has over 50 research papers in peer-reviewed national and international journals, 3 book chapters published by Springer International Publishing, and 60 conference papers. He has been awarded several national and international awards, such as PHEC Postdoctoral Fellowship Award in 2018, Best Research Paper Award by the Association of Science and Information Technology (ASIS&T), USA, and SIG-III InfoShare