Indonesia Infant and Young Child Feeding Practice: The Role of Women’s Empowerment in Household Domain

Previous studies showed the significant association between women’s empowerment and infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practice. Only around 40% of Indonesian children met adequate IYCF practice. Hence, each dimension of women’s empowerment in the household domain must be explored.

We carried out a dataset of the 2017 Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey, with samples of 4,880 mothers of reproductive age in a marriage relationship with their last-born child aged 6-23 months. Logistic regression was applied.

Mother with legal asset ownerships had lower odds of her child meeting (aOR: 0.83; 95% CI: 0.72, 0.95) minimum dietary diversity (MDD), (aOR: 0.75; 95% CI: 0.65, 0.87) minimum meal frequency (MMF) and (aOR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.61, 0.90) minimum acceptable diet (MAD). Mother who could control her own earnings had higher odds of her child meeting MDD (aOR: 1.52; 95% CI: 1.32, 1.74) and MAD (aOR: 1.62; 95% CI: 1.34, 1.94). Employed mother had higher odds of meeting MMF (aOR: 1.58; 95% CI: 1.38, 1.82). Mother who did not approve of intimate partner violence was more likely to feed her child with MDD (1.39 times), MMF (1.41 times) and MAD (2.04 times). Mother with three or more parity had lower odds of her child meeting MDD (aOR: 0.81; 95% CI: 0.79, 0.93), MMF (aOR: 0.84; 95% CI: 0.72, 0.99) and MDD (aOR: 0.80; 95% CI: 0.65, 1.00).

Mother who did not approve towards domestic violence, was working, controlled her assets and had a maximum of two parity was associated with official IYCF recommendation.