Impact of Women's Empowerment and Other Indicators on Antenatal Health Care Utilization in Egypt

Dina Armanious, Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University
Mohamed Hussein, South Valley University

The main objective of this study is to examine the impact of women's empowerment and other variables on number of antenatal care visits. Factor analysis technique is used to construct women's empowerment indicators, availability and quality of health services indicators. Zero-inflated Negative Binomial Regression is used to measure the net effect of different background characteristics, indicators of women's empowerment, and availability and quality of health services on antenatal health care utilization. The results indicate that wealth index is considered to be the most important determinant of receiving antenatal care. Additionally, higher level of women's empowerment, the less likely the women have a zero visit. Accordingly, women's empowerment affects the decision to go to receive antenatal care but does not increase the number of antenatal care visits. Also, Accordingly, it is necessary to initiate programs to promote pregnant women to start receiving antenatal care early.