Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of married couples regarding women’s autonomy and the association of these perceptions with the subjective well-being of wives in Lao PDR. Design/methodology/approach: The study was conducted in semi-urban communities in...

Though gender equity is widely considered to be a key to improving maternal health in developing countries, little empirical evidence has been presented to support this claim. This paper investigates whether or not and how female autonomy within the household affects women's use of reproductive...

There is a growing consensus that stronger health systems are crucial to achieving a further reduction in child mortality. On the other hand, socioeconomic status has also long been considered to be a crucial factor to affect peoplefs health status. Nevertheless, there exists no consistent...

The prevalence of stunting and underweight among Lao children is amongst the highest in the region. This paper provides a theoretical framework which integrates the mechanism of child malnutrition and a household decision-making behaviour and investigates the relationship between socioeconomic...

This paper reports the findings from a quasi-experimental impact evaluation of the Safe Motherhood Promotion Project (SMPP) conducted in the Narsingdi district of Bangladesh. SMPP is a Japanese aid-funded technical cooperation project aimed at developing local capacities to tackle maternal and...

Although stronger health systems and socioeconomic factors are considered to improve health status of children in developing countries, there is no consistent cross-country evidence to support this claim. Because the past studies do not properly treat with endogeneity bias, this paper aims to...

Women's autonomy is widely considered to be a key to improving maternal health in developing countries, whereas there is no consistent empirical evidence to support this claim. This paper examines whether or not and how women's autonomy within the household affects the use of reproductive health...