Measuring Women's Empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses of the Demographic and Health Surveys
Measuring Women's Empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses of the Demographic and Health Surveys
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DOI：
10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00994
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发表时间：
2018-06-19
影响因子：
3.8
通讯作者：
Ernst, Kacey C.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Asaolu, Ibitola O.;Alaofe, Halimatou;Ernst, Kacey C.
背景：妇女地位和赋权影响妇女及其子女的健康、营养和社会经济地位。然而，尽管对撒哈拉以南非洲(SSA)妇女赋权的研究有好处，但其范围和地理范围有限。赋权的定义各不相同，用于跨区域比较的数据往往有限。本研究的目的是从广泛可用的数据来源--人口与健康调查--中确定赋权领域，该数据来源横跨南非多个地区。方法：使用来自代表四个非洲地区的19个国家的人口与健康调查进行分析。总共使用了26项不同层面的指标(经济、社会文化、教育和健康)来描述妇女赋权的特点。所有国家的汇集数据被随机分成两个数据集-一个用于探索性因素分析(EFA)，另一个用于验证性因素分析(CFA)-以验证在EFA期间假设的因素结构。结果：在中非、南部和西非发现了四个因素，包括对暴力的态度、劳动力参与、教育和获得医疗保健的机会。然而，在东非，只有三个因素是相关的：对暴力的态度，获得医疗保健的排名，以及劳动力参与。支持家庭决策、生命历程或法律地位领域作为妇女赋权组成部分的证据有限。结论：这项最重要的研究通过为研究人员和健康与发展领域的其他利益相关者提供妇女赋权的有效衡量标准，促进了妇女赋权的学术研究。
Background: Women's status and empowerment influence health, nutrition, and socioeconomic status of women and their children. Despite its benefits, however, research on women's empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is limited in scope and geography. Empowerment is variably defined and data for comparison across regions is often limited. The objective of the current study was to identify domains of empowerment from a widely available data source, Demographic and Health Surveys, across multiple regions in SSA.Methods: Demographic and Health Surveys from nineteen countries representing four African regions were used for the analysis. A total of 26 indicators across different dimensions (economic, socio-cultural, education, and health) were used to characterize women's empowerment. Pooled data from all countries were randomly divided into two datasets-one for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and the other for Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)-to verify the factor structure hypothesized during EFA.Results: Four factors including attitudes toward violence, labor force participation, education, and access to healthcare were found to define women's empowerment in Central, Southern, and West Africa. However, in East Africa, only three factors were relevant: attitudes toward violence, access to healthcare ranking, and labor force participation. There was limited evidence to support household decision-making, life course, or legal status domains as components of women's empowerment.Conclusion: This foremost study advances scholarship on women's empowerment by providing a validated measure of women's empowerment for researchers and other stakeholders in health and development.