The Impact of Women's Empowerment on Their Children's Early Development in 26 African Countries

Background: Every year more than 200 million children under-five years fail to achieve their full developmental potential in low- and middle-income countries. We investigate whether mothers’ empowerment in different domains is associated with early childhood development in 26 African countries. Methods: We used data from Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys ranging from 2010 to 2018. Four developmental domains were assessed among children aged 36-59 months using the Early Childhood Development Index: literacy-numeracy, physical, learning and socioemotional. Women’s empowerment in attitude to violence, social independence and decision-making was evaluated using the SWPER global, a validated survey-based index. We used logistic regression to estimate the associations between the mother’s empowerment level in each domain and the development of their children in each country. Meta-regressions were performed to combine national results taking sample sizes into account. Findings: Across all countries, 15·1% of the children were on track in the literacy-numeracy domain, 92·3% in physical, 81·3% in learning and 67·8% in socio-emotional. The odds of a child being on track in literacy-numeracy increased by 34% (OR 1·34; 95% CI: 1·31 – 1·37), 88% (OR 1·88; 95% CI: 1·85 – 1·91) and 34% (OR 1·34; 95% CI: 1·29 – 1·39), with a one standard deviation increase in the scores of attitudes to violence, social independence and decision-making domains of empowerment, respectively. No effect of empowerment was observed for the other domains of child development. Interpretation: Mothers’ empowerment had a consistent and positive effect on the literacy-numeracy domain of child development cross-nationally in Africa and this was particularly evident for the social independence domain of empowerment. The heterogeneous effects among countries in other developmental domains spanning small negative and positive estimates may be related to lower variability in these outcomes, or to specific effects on literacy-numeracy development. Funding Statement: The study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation [Grant Number: OPP1199234], Wellcome [Grant Number: 101815/Z/13/Z] and Associacao Brasileira de Saude Coletiva (ABRASCO). Declaration of Interests: The authors have indicated they have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose. Ethics Approval Statement: Both DHS and MICS are public sources of information and ethical approval was obtained from the national institutions involved in each survey.