Women empowerment and under-five children nutrition status: Does women empowerment improve nutrition status among under-five children?

Malnutrition among children under five years is a major public health concern in most of developing countries. Many studies found that, there is a link between women empowerment and child nutrition, where only few studies have been conducted in Tanzania by using small samples. This study was conducted to access the level of malnutrition among under-five children and to analyse the association between women empowerment and child nutrition status by using Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey (TDHS) 2010 data obtained from national and regional representative samples.

Descriptive statistics was used to assess by-variety association between women empowerment indicators, maternal characteristics and children nutrition outcomes. Regression analysis was done to assess the malt-variety association between women empowerment and children nutrition status. The study found that in by-variety analysis, women empowerment indicators had no significant association with children stunting and underweight. Decision making was associated with wasting (low weight for height) which is the children long term nutrition outcome. Maternal education and wealth have emerged to be the strongest variables in influencing child stunting as they were significantly associated at (p<0.01). Therefore, empowering women by providing them with education can have greater impacts on other empowerment indicators and their contribution to household income and hence improved child nutrition.