Abstract
Background
In a study of 32 mostly non-affluent countries, we aimed to i) compare lone mother's
general health to the health of other women and ii) assess whether the association
of health with gender inequality was stronger among lone mothers than among other
women.
Methods
World Health Survey data were analyzed on 57,182 women aged 18 to 50 in 32 countries.
The main outcome was self-assessed general poor health. The Global Gender Gap Index
(GGGI) was used to measure the magnitude of gender inequality within countries. Logistic
multilevel regression was used to compare the health of different groups of women,
and to study the possible influence of gender inequality.
Findings
Compared with all other women, lone mothers had the highest odds of poor health odds
ratio (OR, 1.15; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.09–1.22), also at 35 years or older
with an OR of 1.18 (95% CI, 1.10–1.27). Lone mothers in Ethiopia and Tunisia had the
highest odds of reporting poor health (OR, 1.65 [95% CI, 1.21–2.26] and OR, 1.57 [95%
CI, 0.92–2.68], respectively). The degree of gender inequality was weakly related
to cross-national variations in health of women. These associations were about similar
for all women. For example, the OR for the GGGI was 1.03 for all women except coupled
mothers.
Conclusions
As within North America, lone mothers in non-affluent countries tend to have higher
rates of poor health. The degree of gender inequality is not related to the relative
health of lone mothers, suggesting that other characteristics of nations might be
more influential.
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Biography
Margot I. Witvliet, MSc, PhD, is a post-doctoral researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), studying the influence of country characteristics on population health.
Biography
Onyebuchi A. Arah, MD, MSc, DSc, MPH, PhD, is Professor at the Department of Epidemiology, UCLA and specializes in epidemiologic methodology and the global context of health and disease.
Biography
Karien Stronks, PhD, is professor of Social Medicine, and Head of the Department at the Academic Medical Center/University of Amsterdam and studies the health of vulnerable populations.
Biography
Anton E. Kunst, MSc, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Academic Medical Center/University of Amsterdam and specializes in socioeconomic inequalities on health.
Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 18, 2014
Accepted:
December 10,
2013
Received in revised form:
December 4,
2013
Received:
June 20,
2013
Footnotes
This research was made possible by The Netherlands organization for scientific research (NWO) awarding O.A.A. with the VENI career grant (number 916.96.059).
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 Jacobs Institute of Women's Health. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
