Life Course Perspectives on Women”s Autonomy and Health Outcomes

This paper examines how different patterns of kinship and inheritance affect intergenerational relationships and the ramifications of gender inequality. Peasant societies of pre-industrial Northern Europe are contrasted with those of contemporary South Asia to illuminate some of these relationships. While Northern European kinship and inheritance systems made for high status in youth and a loss of power and status as people aged, South Asian systems make for lower power and status in youth and a rise as people age. From this follow more conflict-ridden relationships between the generations and a stronger conjugal bond in Northern Europe, while in South Asia intergenerational ties are strong and the conjugal bond is weak. This in turn leads to a greater potential for marginalizing women in South Asia, although gender inequality exists in both settings. The convergence of low autonomy due to youth as well as sex amongst young married women in South Asia means that women are at the lowest point in their life cycle in terms of autonomy during their peak childbearing years. As shown in this paper, this has considerable implications for demographic and health outcomes: in terms of poorer child survival, slower fertility decline, and poorer reproductive health. In recent decades, a great deal has been written in the social sciences on the subject of female status and autonomy in both developed and developing country settings. A subset of this literature has specifically pointed out some of the negative demographic consequences of low female autonomy. In particular, low levels of female education and autonomy have been perceived to be barriers to improving child survival and reducing fertility. Much of this literature focuses on the low status of women relative to that of males. Yet there is also a large body of evidence, especially in the anthropological literature, that a woman’s status rises and falls over her life cycle. Several studies highlight the fact that in some societies, women have higher status when they are younger, while in others it is whe