Skip to main content

Table 1 Categorization of exposure variables

From: Dimensions of women’s empowerment on access to skilled delivery services in Nepal

Age

Assigned a value of 0 for below 25, 1 for 26 to 30 and 2 for above 31.

Ethnicity

Described in 4 categories as follows: a value of 3 for Brahmin/kshetri, which included hill Brahmin, hill Kshetri, and Terai Brahmin Kshetri; 2 for Janajati, including Newar, Hill Janajati, and Terai Janajati; 1 for Dalit, which included Hill Dalit and Terai Dalit; and 0 for Other castes, which included the Other Terai caste group, Muslim and Others.

Type of place of residence

Coded as 0 for urban and 1 for rural.

Ecological zone

Coded as 0 for mountain, 1 for hill and 2 for Terai (plain).

Birth order

Coded as 0 for birth order 1, 1 for birth orders 2–3, 2 for birth orders 4–5 and 3 for birth order 6 + .

Education

Assigned a value of 0 for no education, 1 for primary, 2 for secondary and 3 for higher education.

Attitude towards wife beating

Attitude towards wife beating was based on the responses to four DHS questions asking whether the husband was justified in wife beating if she goes out without telling him, neglects the children, argues with him, or burns food.

We assigned a value of 0 for a negative attitude if a woman says no for all the questions and 1 for a positive attitude if a woman says yes for all the questions.

Knowledge of property

If a respondent answered no regarding knowing how much property they have and whose name it is registered in, it is assigned a value of 0; and it is assigned a value of 1 if the respondent answered yes to knowing how much property they have and who owns that property.

Occupation of women

Coded as 0 for not working, 1 for Agriculture self-employed and 2 for other occupations including Professional/technical/managerial, Clerical, Sales/services, skilled manual labor, and unskilled manual labor.

Property possession

A binary variable that is assigned a value of 0 if a respondent does not own any land or a house and 1 if the respondent owned 1 or 2 properties.

Owns a bank account

A binary response that was 0 for no and 1 for yes.

Media exposure

A composite variable combining whether a respondent reads the newspaper or a magazine, listens to the radio and watches TV with a value of 0 if a woman lacks access to all the three media; 1 for medium access if a woman has access to one of the three forms of media; and 2 for high access to media if a woman has access to more than one of the forms of media at least once a week.

Internet use

Coded as 0 for never and 1 for sometimes.

Decision making

Decision making autonomy was based on the question asked to women in the DHS regarding who makes decisions on the respondent’s health, larger household purchases and visits with family or relatives. A respondent who made more than one decision, either alone or jointly with her husband, was coded 1 as having high decision-making authority; and if respondent made none of the decisions either alone or jointly with her husband, it was coded as 0 as low decision making authority.