The following guest post by Rachel Hampton, Research Associate at the Global Health Council, is part of Disruptive Women’s “The Value of Health: Creating Economic Security in the Developing World” series.

Rachel’s areas of focus include maternal, newborn and child health and reproductive health. She has authored research briefs on private sector involvement in health systems, commercial sexual exploitation, the integration of maternal, newborn and child health and family planning, in addition to a variety of other publications from the GHC.

Women’s economic autonomy and employment opportunities are crucial to their health, particularly their reproductive health. Each year, 536,000 women die, nearly 10 million are disabled, and 250 million years of reproductive life are lost because of poor reproductive health. Enabling women’s economic sovereignty has the potential to allow women to take control of their fertility – they would have the resources to access family planning services, effectively space wanted pregnancies and limit unsafe abortions – all of which are leading factors to poor maternal health.

Limited economic security, limited access to education and poor employment opportunities contribute to lack of access to health services, education and employment, and lead to high fertility rates and increased maternal mortality and morbidity. In many countries, women are not allowed to own property and are limited in their economic opportunities, restricting their economic security and limiting access to reproductive health services. Lack of finances is particularly problematic for women who are heads of households or married women who have little say in family finances.

Limited financial autonomy for women also has a profound impact on their children, resulting in generations of young people who have limited opportunities for education and employment. Young girls are particularly vulnerable, as they often miss out on educational or employment opportunities because they have to provide care for sick relatives or have children at a young age. Economic empowerment could break this circle of poverty and ensure economic security and improved health for generations to come.

In addition to affecting women, families and future generations, poor reproductive health has an impact on the broader community and nation. Rapid population growth because lack of contraception exacerbates poverty, as scare resources must be distributed among more people, resulting in small investments per person and exacerbated financial hardship. Poor reproductive health also stalls economies, exacerbates food shortages, and contributes to national security issues.

The economic security of women has an important impact on their reproductive health. Opportunities for economic empowerment, such as VirtuArte, are absolutely essential to ensuring that women have access to reproductive health services, including family planning, birth spacing and safe abortions. Without good reproductive health, women, families, communities, and nations in developing countries will continue to face poverty, economic insecurity and poor health.

Related posts:

1. The Value of Health: Creating Economic Security in the Developing World: Disruptive Women in Health Care is Going Global with a New Series and e-Book on Global Health
2. Health and Economic Security in the US: Why Community Health Centers Matter
3. The Value of Health: Creating Economic Security in the Developing World
4. Improving Women’s Health: Decreasing Maternal Death
5. This International Women’s Day Let’s Aim to End Maternal Deaths

This entry was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 9:02 am and is filed under Global Health, Guest Posts, Women's Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.