Prioritising action to accelerate gender equity and health for women and girls: Microdata analysis of 47 countries

The Sustainable Development Goals set ambitious targets for health. Meeting such will require drastic improvements in the social conditions for women and girls. Understanding which social conditions have the greatest impact on health can help prioritise action, yet there is little comparative data. We use microdata from 338,580 women in 47 low- and middle-income countries to estimate the relative contributions of improved social determinants in bringing about maternal and child health gains over the past 20 years. Regression analyses examine determinants related to education, work, health services, family, and violence; the potential health benefit that could be derived from improving conditions is calculated. Secondary education and child marriage emerge as the strongest and most consistent predictors of health. The largest impact is seen on adolescent births: we estimate that achieving universal completion of secondary schooling for young women could lower adolescent births by 18 percentage points; eliminating child marriages could lower adolescent births by 11 points. Intervening in these two areas could also bring about substantial reductions in the unmet need for family planning, past-year intimate partner violence, and child mortality. Thus, we suggest prioritising policies targeting secondary education and child marriage in order to accelerate gender equity and health.