The relationship of women’s status and empowerment with skilled birth attendant use in Senegal and Tanzania

Table 1 Characteristics of participating women who gave birth(s) in last five years (weighted n = 7033 in SN; n = 4445 in TZ), Senegal and Tanzania DHS 2010

Variables	Senegal			Tanzania
	Freq	Weighted		Freq	Weighted
	Freq	Mean or Proportion	SE	Freq	Mean or Proportion	SE
Outcome
Skilled Birth Attendant (SBA) use at the last birth	4251	66.30	1.27	2233	50.95	1.51
Demographics and perceived accessibility of health care
Education
Formal education attendance (in years)		1.79	0.08		5.01	0.10
No formal education	5577	70.54	1.21	1082	24.42	1.22
Primary attended	1384	20.74	1.01	2771	68.93	1.18
Secondary or above attended	490	8.71	0.57	556	6.65	0.52
Age at childbirth		29.40	0.12		29.38	0.15
Household wealth quintile
Poorest	2264	22.38	1.31	818	19.58	1.08
Poorer	1882	20.95	1.18	957	22.61	0.96
Middle	1534	19.19	1.13	905	21.47	0.92
Richer	1056	19.85	1.34	954	19.99	1.12
Richest	715	17.63	1.12	775	16.35	1.14
Employment for payment
Employed (currently or last 12 months)	3386	46.04	1.12	1717	38.07	1.10
Parity (Total # of children ever born to women)		3.81	0.04		3.90	0.05
Marital relationships
Monogamous union	4909	68.19	0.83	3394	78.87	0.53
Polygamous as 1st wife	991	12.73	0.44	434	8.97	0.53
Polygamous as 2nd or lower	1550	19.08	0.55	549	12.16	0.82
Household head	322	4.98	0.38	251	5.67	0.47
Place of residence
Urban	2267	39.95	1.62	878	21.67	1.18
Rural	5184	60.05	1.62	3531	78.33	1.18
Having son(s)	5687	80.87	0.63	3618	81.38	0.67
Perceived difficulty in accessing health care (Mean, scored 0–4)		1.23	0.04		0.53	0.02
Women’s empowerment proxy measures
Household decision-making power (scored 0–3)		0.92	0.03		1.43	0.02
Perceptions against violence (0–5)		2.80	0.05		3.16	0.04
Perceptions for sex negotiation (0–2)		0.60	0.02		1.38	0.02
Age at first marriage		18.29	0.10		18.28	0.06

Characteristics related to births were also assessed including all births that women delivered in the last five years (weighted birth n = 10,668 in SN; n = 6748 in TZ). The proportion of SBA use at the recent birth(s) was 64.6 % in SN; 47.5 % in TZ. The mean of birth order of each birth was 3.67 in SN; 3.75 in TZ. The proportion of births that took place when women had living son(s) was 60.2 % in SN; 62.3 % in TZ
Frequency missing with demographic characteristics = 32 (with marital relationships), and 17 (with perceived difficulty in accessing health care) in Tanzania. Missing = 1 (with marital relationships) in Senegal

ISSN: 1471-2393