Analyzing the Impact of Lady Health Worker Program on Utilization of Maternal Health Services in Community With a Lady Health Worker in Sindh Province

The study aims to analyze impact of Lady Health Worker program on use of maternal health services in community with a lady health worker. The main focus was the rural districts of Sindh for this case study. The maternal health service is determined by at least four Antenatal care (ANC) visits provided to mother and receipt of at least two Tetanus Toxoid (TT) injections to mother during pregnancy. These have direct impact on maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate. Secondary data pertaining to all districts of Sind for three years (2017-2019) was collected from the Sindh Lady Health Worker program office Hyderabad for analysis purpose. Further secondary data of Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (2017-18) was also used to see the impact of intervention of LHW program implemented by Ministry of Health Pakistan in 1994 and then devolved to provinces after the implementation of 18th Constitutional Amendment in 2010. The study found that the services provided by the lady health workers in communities in these districts has positively influenced the uptake of maternal health services as determined by the variables like antenatal visits by pregnant mothers to nearest health facilities and receipt of Tetanus Toxoid injection during pregnancy.

Role of Gender Power Sharing in Human Development and Economic Growth

This study has developed the concept of Gender Power Sharing. The concept has been applied to construct Gender Power Sharing Index (GPSI) for thirty three developing countries of the world. The selection of countries is based upon the availability of the data of indicators used for the construction of GPSI. The index has been constructed by taking into account three different dimensions related with male and female„s relative participation in earning, spending and family size decision. The value of measure falls between 0 and 1, where 1 stands for perfect power sharing among male and female in major household concerns. While 0 shows an absence of sharing among male and female. Countries are ranked according to their standing in gender power sharing. GPSI has been found to be moderately correlated with existing gender indices such as Gender Development Index, Gender Inequality Index and Global Gender Gap. Temporal and spatial comparison of GPSI with other gender Indices show that some countries like Jordan and Egypt have low gender power sharing despite their relatively higher ranking in Gender Development Index. Similarly, some countries like Madagascar and Rwanda have higher Gender Power Sharing despite their low ranking in Gender Development Index. In next step, the role of Gender Power Sharing has been investigated to explain the differences of Economic Growth and Human Development across the selected countries. Our empirical findings indicate that gender power sharing as measured by GPSI has positive and significant effect on Economic Growth and Literacy. Among three different dimensions of gender power sharing the role of expenditure sharing has been found as the most important crucial for Economic Growth and Human Development.