Cargando…

The relationship between women’s empowerment and household food and nutrition security in Pakistan

Women’s empowerment is considered to play a crucial role in food and nutrition security. We aimed to explore the relationship between women’s empowerment and food and nutrition security, in rural Pakistan. Methods: To estimate women’s empowerment, we developed a Rural Women Composite Empowerment Ind...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ishfaq, Sidra, Anjum, Abedullah, Kouser, Shahzad, Nightingale, Glenna, Jepson, Ruth
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9584378/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36264856
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275713
_version_ 1784813250300346368
author Ishfaq, Sidra
Anjum, Abedullah
Kouser, Shahzad
Nightingale, Glenna
Jepson, Ruth
author_facet Ishfaq, Sidra
Anjum, Abedullah
Kouser, Shahzad
Nightingale, Glenna
Jepson, Ruth
author_sort Ishfaq, Sidra
collection PubMed
description Women’s empowerment is considered to play a crucial role in food and nutrition security. We aimed to explore the relationship between women’s empowerment and food and nutrition security, in rural Pakistan. Methods: To estimate women’s empowerment, we developed a Rural Women Composite Empowerment Index incorporating nine domains. For indicators of food and nutritional data we used data of 1879 rural households from Pakistan Rural Household Panel Survey (PRHPS). Food insecurity was measured through a caloric intake approach; nutrition insecurity was measured through recommended nutrient intake (RNI). Using the Rural Women’s Composite Empowerment Index (RWCEI), we employed multi-level mixed-effect regression analysis. Results: The domains of traveling safely (21%), time allocated to tasks (20%), and (lack of) domestic violence (19%) were the most significant domains in defining empowerment of rural woman. The prevalence of food and nutrition insecurity were 33% and 50% respectively. Regression analysis found a positive and significant relationship between women’s empowerment and food and nutrition security–the proportion of household who were food and nutritionally secure in empowered households was 70% and 98% respectively. Conclusions: Developing programmes and policies to improve the range of domains of women’s empowerment requires a focussed policy agenda, bringing together policy makers from a number of different sectors including education, economy, communications, technology and agriculture. Women’s empowerment has the potential to make positive changes not only in food and nutrition security, but in all aspects of family health and wellbeing.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9584378
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-95843782022-10-21 The relationship between women’s empowerment and household food and nutrition security in Pakistan Ishfaq, Sidra Anjum, Abedullah Kouser, Shahzad Nightingale, Glenna Jepson, Ruth PLoS One Research Article Women’s empowerment is considered to play a crucial role in food and nutrition security. We aimed to explore the relationship between women’s empowerment and food and nutrition security, in rural Pakistan. Methods: To estimate women’s empowerment, we developed a Rural Women Composite Empowerment Index incorporating nine domains. For indicators of food and nutritional data we used data of 1879 rural households from Pakistan Rural Household Panel Survey (PRHPS). Food insecurity was measured through a caloric intake approach; nutrition insecurity was measured through recommended nutrient intake (RNI). Using the Rural Women’s Composite Empowerment Index (RWCEI), we employed multi-level mixed-effect regression analysis. Results: The domains of traveling safely (21%), time allocated to tasks (20%), and (lack of) domestic violence (19%) were the most significant domains in defining empowerment of rural woman. The prevalence of food and nutrition insecurity were 33% and 50% respectively. Regression analysis found a positive and significant relationship between women’s empowerment and food and nutrition security–the proportion of household who were food and nutritionally secure in empowered households was 70% and 98% respectively. Conclusions: Developing programmes and policies to improve the range of domains of women’s empowerment requires a focussed policy agenda, bringing together policy makers from a number of different sectors including education, economy, communications, technology and agriculture. Women’s empowerment has the potential to make positive changes not only in food and nutrition security, but in all aspects of family health and wellbeing. Public Library of Science 2022-10-20 /pmc/articles/PMC9584378/ /pubmed/36264856 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275713 Text en © 2022 Ishfaq et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ishfaq, Sidra
Anjum, Abedullah
Kouser, Shahzad
Nightingale, Glenna
Jepson, Ruth
The relationship between women’s empowerment and household food and nutrition security in Pakistan
title The relationship between women’s empowerment and household food and nutrition security in Pakistan
title_full The relationship between women’s empowerment and household food and nutrition security in Pakistan
title_fullStr The relationship between women’s empowerment and household food and nutrition security in Pakistan
title_full_unstemmed The relationship between women’s empowerment and household food and nutrition security in Pakistan
title_short The relationship between women’s empowerment and household food and nutrition security in Pakistan
title_sort relationship between women’s empowerment and household food and nutrition security in pakistan
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9584378/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36264856
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275713
work_keys_str_mv AT ishfaqsidra therelationshipbetweenwomensempowermentandhouseholdfoodandnutritionsecurityinpakistan
AT anjumabedullah therelationshipbetweenwomensempowermentandhouseholdfoodandnutritionsecurityinpakistan
AT kousershahzad therelationshipbetweenwomensempowermentandhouseholdfoodandnutritionsecurityinpakistan
AT nightingaleglenna therelationshipbetweenwomensempowermentandhouseholdfoodandnutritionsecurityinpakistan
AT jepsonruth therelationshipbetweenwomensempowermentandhouseholdfoodandnutritionsecurityinpakistan
AT ishfaqsidra relationshipbetweenwomensempowermentandhouseholdfoodandnutritionsecurityinpakistan
AT anjumabedullah relationshipbetweenwomensempowermentandhouseholdfoodandnutritionsecurityinpakistan
AT kousershahzad relationshipbetweenwomensempowermentandhouseholdfoodandnutritionsecurityinpakistan
AT nightingaleglenna relationshipbetweenwomensempowermentandhouseholdfoodandnutritionsecurityinpakistan
AT jepsonruth relationshipbetweenwomensempowermentandhouseholdfoodandnutritionsecurityinpakistan