WOMEN’S POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND HEALTH

Understanding the relationship between women’s political participation and health has eluded researchers and cannot be adequately studied using traditional epidemiological or social scientific methodologies. We employed a health capability framework to understand dimensions of health agency to illuminate how local political economies or social scientific methodologies. Our research project in rural India deployed the health capability framework coupled with a qualitative methodology to study women’s political participation and its linkages to health in Shivgarh, a block of rural villages in Uttar Pradesh’s (UP) Rae Barelly district. This study demonstrates that the villages’ culture encourages elders, particularly elder women, to engage actively in their communities. Elder women demonstrated the greatest sense of self-efficacy, but only rare improvements in participation, autonomy, or health system functioning. We found that a better understanding of cultural norms surrounding autonomy, the local infrastructure and health system, and male and female perceptions of political participation and self-efficacy are needed to improve women’s agency.

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