Decline in Adult Female Mortality over Three Successive Surveys in Indonesia

Mohamed M. Ali, World Health Organization (WHO)
Zoe Matthews, University of Southampton

This paper exploits the wealth of data now available on adult female mortality in Indonesia from three successive DHS surveys. Using sibling histories from a combined sample of 193,643 sisters, mortality rates for women aged between 15 and 49 are calculated. Over the last decade female mortality has declined by 19%, maternal mortality has dropped by 40% and the percentage of adult female deaths due to maternal causes has fallen from 20% to 15%. Despite these improvements, there are concerns that health gains for women are occurring only among the rich. Adult female mortality rates were calculated by wealth quintile, using an elaboration of the familial technique by fitting a Poisson regression. Clearly the wealth divide in Indonesia, already reported to be widening, has remained unchanged, the most recent survey showing that those in the lowest wealth quintile are now experiencing a maternal mortality rate double that of the highest.