User:Iyaec39/Gender disparities in health

Will be adding to "Management" under this article with a subsection named "International perspectives" concerning the various states and views of gender disparities in health access and participation in regions as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO). The following regions as defined by WHO: Region of the Americas; South-East Asia region; European Region; Eastern Mediterranean Region; Western Pacific Region.

South-East Asia region

Women in South-East Asia often find themselves in subordinate positions of power and dependency on their male counterparts-regarding cultural, economics, and societal relations. Because there is a limited level of control and access granted to women in this region, the capability for daughters to counteract generational biases regarding gender specific roles are highly limited. In contrast to many other industrialised countries, life expectancy is equal or shorter for women in this region, with the probability of surviving the first five years of life for women equal to or smaller than that of males.

A potential explanation as to why there are disparate difference in health status and access between genders is due to an unbalanced sex ratio-for example, the Indian subcontinent has a ratio of 770 women per 1000 men. Neglect of female children, limited or poor access to health care, sex selective abortions, and reproductive mortality are all additional reasons as to why there is a severe inequity between genders. Education and increased socioeconomical independency are projected to assist in the leveling of health-care access between the genders, but there are sociocultural circumstances and attitudes concerning the prioritization of males over females that stagnates progress. Sri Lank has repeatedly been identified as a role model of sorts for other nations within this region, as there are minimal differences in health, educational, and employment levels between genders.

European Region

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) gender discrimination in relation to lack of access and provision of health in this region is supported by concrete survey data. In the European Region, 1 in 5 women have been domestic violence victims, while honour killings, female genital mutilation, and bride kidnapping still occur. Additional studies done by the WHO have found that immigrant women face a 43% higher risk of having an underweight child, 61% greater risk of having a child with congenital malformations, and 50% higher chance of perinatal mortality. In European countries, women make up the majority of those unemployed, earning an average 15% less than men while 58% were observed to be unemployed. Differences in wages are even greater in the Eastern part of the region, as represented in the comparison of wages between women (4954 US dollars) in Albania versus men (9143 US dollars.)

Eastern Mediterranean Region

Access to education and employment are key elements in achieving gender equality in health. Female literacy rates in the Eastern Mediterranean were found by the WHO to fall sharply behind their male counterparts, as evident in the cases of Yemen (66:100) and Djibouti (62:100.) Further barriers other than the prioritization of providing opportunities for males, include the inability for females in this region to pursue anything more than a tertiary education because of economic constraints. Contraceptive usage and knowledge of reproductive options were found to be more present amongst women who had received higher levels of education in Egypt, the rate of contraceptive usage being 93% among those who were university-educated versus illiterate.

In regards to the influence of employment upon a woman’s capability to know of and fight for equity in health care, in this region, women were found by the WHO to participate lower in the labor market than other regions (at an average of 28%.) The lowest number of women in paid employment within this region was found in Saudi Arabia and other countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), while the highest number of women with paid employment were in Morocco, Lebanon, and Yemen.

The lack of availability of health care services in this region particularly complicates matters as certain countries are already strained by ongoing conflict and war. According to WHO, the ratio of physicians per population is drastically lower in the countries Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, and Djibouti, while health infrastructures are nearly nonexistent in Afghanistan. With additional complications of distance to and from medical services, the access of health care services is even more complex for women in this region as the majority are unable to afford the transportation costs or time.

Western Pacific Region

Gender based division of labor in this region has been observed by the WHO as reason for the differences in health risks that the two genders are exposed to in contrast to one another. Most commonly, women of this region are engaged in insecure and informal forms of labor, therefore being unable to gain related benefits such as insurance or pension. In regards to education, the gap between male and females is relatively small in primary and secondary schools, however, there is undeniably an uneven distribution of literacy rates between the various countries within this region. According to the WHO substantial differences in literacy rates between men and women exist particularly in Papua New Guinea (55.6% for women and 63.6% for men) and Lao People’s Democratic Republic (63.2% for women and 82.5% for men.)