How women's bodily integrity is affected by reproductive health events: A panel approach with data from Northern Tanzania

While abundant evidence exists on the positive effect of women's empowerment on reproductive health, the inverse causality has been little studied. In this paper, we study the effects of reproductive health events on women's bodily integrity, using a panel data set of married women in Northern Tanzania. We find that pregnancy loss reduces women's rejection of intimate partner violence and that child mortality lowers women's perceived control over their sexual relationship with their husband. These results confirm the idea that women's bodily integrity is partly dependent on their reproductive role, i.e. the birth and lives of their children