Impact of Women's Empowerment on Infant Mortality in Indonesia

Women's autonomy and empowerment has generally been recognized as one of most important factors of development. A lack of autonomy and empowerment may lead to negative outcomes on child health and mortality. Yet no study to-date has analyzed links between women's empowerment and infant mortality in Indonesia. This study tried to fill this gap to investigate the effect of women's empowerment on infant mortality in Indonesia. Sample of 9,754 women aged 15-49 years who had their last childbirth in period 2007-2012 were drawn from 2012 Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey. Composite index was considered to measure women's empowerment. Eight indicators were considered to measure three dimensions of women's empowerment, namely participation in economic decision-making, participation in health decision-making, and autonomy in mobility. Furthermore, the binary logistic model had been specified and estimated to investigate the effect of women's empowerment on infant mortality. Results showed that women who were more empowered were significantly less likely to experience infant mortality. This highlights the importance of women's empowerment in efforts to reduce infant mortality