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Journal article
Gender inequality, women's empowerment, and adolescent birth rates in 363 Latin American cities
Social science & medicine (1982), v 317, 115566
Jan 2023
PMID: 36446141
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Gender inequality is high in Latin America (LA). Empowering girls and young women and reducing gender gaps has been proposed as a pathway to reduce adolescent pregnancy. We investigated the associations of urban measures of women's empowerment and gender inequality with adolescent birth rates (ABR) in 366 Latin American cities in nine countries.
We created a gender inequality index (GII) and three Women Achievement scores reflecting domains of women's empowerment (employment, education, and health care access) using censuses, surveys, and political participation data at city and sub-city levels. We used 3-level negative binomial models (sub-city-city-countries) to assess the association between the GII and scores, with ABR while accounting for other city and sub-city characteristics.
We found within country heterogeneity in gender inequality and women's empowerment measures. The ABR was 4% higher for each 1 standard deviation (1-SD) higher GII (RR 1.04; 95%CI 1.01,1.06), 8% lower for each SD higher autonomy score (RR 0.92; 95%CI 0.86, 0.99), and 12% lower for each SD health care access score (RR 0.88; 95%CI 0.82,0.95) after adjustment for city level population size, population growth, homicide rates, and sub-city population educational attainment and living conditions scores.
Our findings show the key role cities have in reducing ABR through the implementation of strategies that foster women's socioeconomic progress such as education, employment, and health care access.
•Levels of women empowerment and gender inequality vary in Latin American cities.•Higher city gender inequality is associated with higher adolescent birth rates.•Higher city women empowerment is associated with lower adolescent birth rates.•Urban policies targeting gender gaps might help reduce adolescent birth rates.
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Details
- Title
- Gender inequality, women's empowerment, and adolescent birth rates in 363 Latin American cities
- Creators
- Ariela Braverman-Bronstein - Drexel UniversityAna F. Ortigoza - Drexel UniversityDèsirée Vidaña-Pérez - Center for Survey Research and Evaluation, National Institute of Public Health Cuernavaca, MexicoTonatiuh Barrientos-Gutiérrez - Center for Population Health Research, National Institute of Public Health, Cuernavaca, MexicoLaura Baldovino-Chiquillo - School of Medicine, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, ColombiaUsama Bilal - Drexel UniversityAmélia Augusta de Lima Friche - Observatory for Urban Health in Belo Horizonte, School of Medicine, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, BrazilFrancisco Diez-Canseco - Cancer Genomics CentreJulie Maslowsky - University of Illinois ChicagoAlejandra Vives V. - Pontificia Universidad Católica de ChileAna V. Diez Roux - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Social science & medicine (1982), v 317, 115566
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Urban Health Collaborative
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000975660100001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85142692503
- Other Identifier
- 991019364220404721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
- Social Sciences, Biomedical