Cross-national analysis of a model of reproductive health in developing countries

Current perspectives on reproductive health place strong emphasis on making steady progress with respect to women’s reproductive rights (Mann, 1996 and Mann, 1997) in developing countries. Reproductive rights are composed of abortion rights and personal rights such as rights of equality of sexes during marriage. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model of reproductive health at the cross-national level. It is argued that improvements in gender equality and levels of democracy are necessary and important for increasing reproductive health levels. Data from 129 developing countries are used to test the proposed model. It is found that as the level of democracy increases resulting in improvements in gender equality, the extent of personal rights improves. Furthermore, advances in personal rights increase the level of reproductive health. Theoretical implications and limitations of the study are discussed.