Influences of Women's Empowerment on Health Across Generations in Bangladesh

说明(申请人提供)：这项研究的目的是增加对社会文化进程的了解，通过这些进程，妇女赋权会影响下一代妇女的健康，反之，可能会阻碍跨代影响的进程，视情况而定。如果妇女赋权真的是一个有可能影响健康和社会结果的重要因素，那么应该能够看到赋权的影响随着时间的推移而放大，并在几代人之间产生共鸣，特别是在家庭内部？然而，很少有研究对此进行检验。这项研究解决了有关妇女赋权对健康的重要性的文献中的理论和方法上的空白。它将扩展丰富的现有数据体的用途，并产生一个在时间深度、空间广度以及调查和定性数据的整合方面不同寻常的数据集。它将使用1994年和2002年孟加拉国农村六个村庄的调查数据，并在妇女的小样本中重复调查，以提供妇女赋权研究中罕见的纵向视角。将对两类三合会妇女进行深入的人种学访谈：1)在主要研究地点以外结婚的年轻妇女，这是一个通常在社区研究中消失的群体；2)结婚到主要研究地点的年轻新娘、她们的岳母和她们的母亲(将在自己居住的村庄进行追踪和采访)。年轻女性的丈夫和岳父的子样本也将接受采访，以提供男性观点。将这项研究放在长期的研究地点将有助于我们了解孟加拉国农村环境中不断变化的机会和制约因素，这些因素影响着妇女关于其女儿和儿媳的战略和决定。这项研究将审查妇女赋权对影响妇女健康和福祉的两个密切相关结果的影响：结婚年龄和开始生育年龄。女孩早婚和早育对年轻母亲及其婴儿产生了广泛的负面社会和健康后果，并导致人口快速增长。根据2004年的国家调查数据，孟加拉国是仅次于尼日尔的研究地点，其青春期新娘的比例仅次于尼日尔，68%的女孩在18岁之前结婚。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of this research is to increase understanding of the socio-cultural processes through which women's empowerment affects the health of subsequent generations of women, or, conversely, the processes through which the cross-generational influence may be thwarted, as the case may be. If women's empowerment is truly an important factor with the potential to influence health and social outcomes, then it should be possible to see the effects of empowerment amplify over time and resonate across generations, especially within the family? Yet few studies have examined this. The study addresses both theoretical and methodological gaps in the literature on the significance of women's empowerment on health. It will extend the utility of a rich existing body of data and produce a data set unusual in its temporal depth, its spatial breadth, and its integration of survey and qualitative data. It will employ survey data from 1994 and 2002 from six villages in rural Bangladesh and repeat the surveys among sub samples of women to provide a longitudinal perspective rare in studies of women's empowerment. In-depth, ethnographic interviews will be conducted with two types of triads of women: 1) young women who married outside of the primary study sites, a population normally lost to community studies; and their mothers and mothers-in-law; 2) young brides who married into the primary study sites, their mothers-in-law and their mothers (who will be traced and interviewed in their own villages of residence). Sub-samples of the young women's husbands and fathers-in-law will also be interviewed to provide male perspectives. Locating the study in longstanding research sites will help us to understand the evolving constellation of opportunities and constraints in the rural Bangladesh environment that influence women's strategies and decisions concerning their daughters and daughters-in-law. The study will examine the influence of women's empowerment on two closely-related outcomes influencing women's health and well-being: age at marriage and age at initiation of childbearing. Early marriage and childbearing among girls is associated with a wide range of negative social and health consequences for young mothers and their infants, and contributes to rapid population growth. The research site, Bangladesh, is second only to Niger as having the highest percentage of adolescent brides in the world, with 68% of girls being married by age 18, according to national survey data from 2004.