Gender analysis on prenatal care in rural areas of Xinjiang and Anhui province / 中华流行病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To introduce the gender-specific view to the prenatal care and analysing the health behavior and its influencing factors. Methods Random sampling in cluster was used to select those study population and face to face interview was carried out at their residence in Xinjiang and Anhui province. Results The overall socioeconomic status of women in rural areas of Xinjiang and Anbui province was low and 93.2% of the women had education level on junior middle school or below. Politically women were less interested in these issues with only 63.1% of them ever participated in the election program or voting. In household daily life, women' s status was almost equal to or even higher than men, but men always called the shots when something important in family happened. Men still held the power of decision making. In 47.3% of the families, the husband played a decisive role on decision making. In 37.7% of the families, husbands controlled the money. When getting into expensive expenditure, 35.2% of the families having men made the final approval. When there were different opinions between the couples, husband usually made the final decision in 44.2% of all the families compared to 6.3% of the families that wives made the final decision. 73.9% of women under survey bad undergone prenatal examination and the rate on household deliveries reached 30.3%. Both gender consciousness and educational level had influenced the effect on prenatal care. Conclusion It is important to better prenatal health service in rural areas and to improve socioeconomic status on gender consciousness of women.