Women's work and breastfeeding simultaneously rise in Ghana
Derose, L.F.
Economic Development and Cultural Change 55(3): 583-612
2007
ISSN/ISBN: 0013-0079 DOI: 10.1086/511193Document Number: 291549
The determinants of breastfeeding, maternal work, contraceptive use and recent fertility were estimated in separate regressions. Women's work was included in the equation predicting breastfeeding not to give it a causal interpretation but to simply examine how the relationship between work and breastfeeding may have changed overtime. The analysis reveals which forces of modernization conflict with breastfeeding and which are more supportive of it. The data come from the Demographic and Health Surveys in Ghana in 1988, 1993 and 1998. Breastfeeding increased in Ghana during 1988 98 despite women's increased participation in the paid labour force. The modern health care sector seems to have been successfully promoting breastfeeding even over a period when other forces of modernization could have depressed breastfeeding. Full breastfeeding significantly increased in urban areas. Changes in household structure had more complex effects. Over time, fewer new mothers were living with other women, depressing breastfeeding since co-resident women support breastfeeding. However, women who worked in the paid labour force and who did not live with other women were particularly likely to bring their child during the workday, and expansion of employment relatively compatible with child rearing partly explains the simultaneous rise in women's work and breastfeeding. Family nucleation nonetheless worked against extended breastfeeding in another way, as wives who resided with their husbands became significantly more likely to wean over the course of the decade, perhaps due to their husbands having a reduced number of outside partners in association with the AIDS epidemic.