Factors Explaining Variations In The Patterns Of Gender Inequality ( Challanges Of Access To Reproductive Health Services Flashcards
Political factors
Education - tends to favour males
MDGa have made improvements for girls to achieve primary education
Still disadvantaged - particularly in rural areas and rural poor.
Sub-Saharan Africa biggest problem with only 30% of the female population receiving secondary education
Higher participation in education = lower levels of fertility rates, population and IMR rates.
UN and UNICEF run a girls education initiative
NGO’s are in education partnerships and MNC’s are having a role as part of their CSR obligations
Female education is key to empowering women and achieving gender equality for all
Women would be able to move into the labour force easier and improve production capacity
Challenges for females to be in education:
- costs ( choose to educate boys over the girls)
- household obligations fall on the child as increased male - out migration
Afghanistan has the lowest years of people in education 1 for females and 5 for males
UK,USA and Germany all have 11.5 to 12 + years in education
Higher income = more girls stay at school for longer
Economic factors
Employment - the labour force participation rate = index of equality used in UNDP
Ratio of females to males within a country’s working population ( 15 and over) that engage with the labour market - by working or looking for work
Malawi = 1.042 ( more females than males)
Afghan = 0.197 ( very lower access for women compared to men
Can correlate with HDI
India - decreased from 0.4 in 2007 to 0.3.75 in 2010 relatively low compared with other emerging economies
Lowest = North Africa and Middle East states
Spatial variations include: social norms, cultural beliefs, levels of government support for childcare, degree of how safeguarding of equal opportunity’s is aided by law, acceptance of women being household contributors,discrimination by employers and gender-based norms that shape educational and job decisions
Social factors
Access to reproductive health services - right is violated when women and girls are denied access
Challenges include
- sexual violence, FGM and breast ironing, gender bias information and education, lack of decision making power, early forced marriage, young pregnancies, HIV
Most risk = poor women and girls
Economically and socially disadvantaged children are less likely to be empowered and receive education, information and be able to negotiate safer sex, number and spacing of children
Early marriage and births = education ends = employment opportunities diminish = vulnerable to poverty = health suffers and increased MMR
International organisations such as ICRW
Amref Health Africa Womankind work closely with the
communities.
Women for change and womankind - Zambia
Gender inequality
Unequal treatment of individuals based upon their gender.
Men and women are in a situation where they do not enjoy the same rights and opportunities across all sectors of society due to being a man or a women.
Statistics show that in many circumstances women suffer the most - being a major obstacle to development.
Although, increasingly international organisations are introducing men and boys into their educational programmes concerning roles for genders.
Global Gender Gap Index ( GGGI) - devised by ( WEF)
Gender gaps based on economic, political, education and health criteria
Most inequality - Yemen with a GGGI. Score of 0.514
Least inequality - Iceland with a score of 0.859
Protection of discrimination and exploitation of women in 21st century has seen great improvements but still occurs in all countries - particularly prevalent in poorer economies
Challenges of access to reproductive health services
- developing countries
Early forced marriage - In developing countries 1 in 3 teenagers marry before they are 18 and 1 in 9 before they are 15
High rates of young pregnancies - every day there are approximately 20,000 births to girls under 18
Sexually transmitted diseases eg. HIV
Harmful traditional practices such as FGM and ironing breasts
Forced sterilisation and abortion
Sexual violence
Gender bias in education and access to information
Lack of empowerment in family sizes and spacing of pregnancies
Reproductive health services access
Factors leading to inequality in education for women
- costs ( choose to educate boys over the girls)
- household obligations fall on the child as increased male - out migration
- patriarchal systems - girl may not be of any benefit to the family once she is married off.
- inadequate sanitation in schools
- insufficient female teaching
- girls are exploited for child labour
- increased child marriage and pregnancies
- prevalence of different religions
- Lack of legislation and government investment
