2026/01/01 by J A A Baafi · 1 voice
Medicine · Nursing · Social Sciences · #Global Maternal and Child Health #Child Nutrition and Water Access #Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare
paper · doi:10.17037/pubs.04681553
openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/04/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
Households are the fundamental social units in which women and their children are embedded. They play a central role in shaping both women’s empowerment and influence the extent to which women’s empowerment translates into improved health outcomes for children. Studies that examine the relationship between women’s empowerment and child health outcomes, however, often neglect the role of households. Particularly in Ghana, research on how different household arrangements affect women’s empowerment is limited, and studies examining whether households moderate the relationship between empowerment and child health are even scarcer. My PhD research addresses these gaps, providing evidence on the relationships linking household structure, women’s empowerment and child health outcomes in Ghana. The research unfolds in three parts using nationally representative data from Ghana, including censuses and the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). In the first study, manual and datadriven classification approaches were employed to identify typologies of household living arrangements and track trends over time. The second study used regression models to examine the association between household structure and women’s empowerment, measured through household-level indicators of decision-making (health, purchases, visits and income) and attitudes toward intimate partner violence. The third study investigated whether household structure moderates the relationship between women’s empowerment and child health outcomes, focusing on mortality, stunting and vaccination and using data from the most recent DHS. Household classifications revealed diverse forms of nuclear and extended households, with trends in household structure in Ghana remaining relatively stable over time. Household structure was significantly associated with women’s empowerment: women in extended households with parents-in-law reported lower empowerment than those in nuclear households. Nevertheless, not all women in extended households were disadvantaged. Those living with their parents and in other extended households (parents and parents-in-law are absent) were not worse off than those in nuclear households. There was some evidence that household structure moderates the relationship between women’s empowerment and child health outcomes; however, the results were only significant for child vaccination. Programs and interventions that seek to improve women’s empowerment need to take into account their household contexts.