IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0260219.html

Effects of spousal migration on access to healthcare for women left behind: A cross-sectional follow-up study

Author

Listed:
  • Heidi S West
  • Mary E Robbins
  • Corrina Moucheraud
  • Abdur Razzaque
  • Randall Kuhn

Abstract

Background: Women left behind by migration represent a unique and growing population yet remain understudied as key players in the context of migration and development. Using a unique longitudinal survey of life in Bangladesh, the Matlab Health and Socioeconomic Surveys, we examined the role of spousal migration in healthcare utilization for women. The objective of this study was to assess realized access to care (do women actually get healthcare when it is needed) and consider specific macrostructural, predisposing, and resource barriers to care that are related to migration. Methods and findings: In a sample of 3,187 currently married women, we estimated multivariate logistic and multinomial regression models controlling for a wide range of baseline sociodemographic factors measured as far back as 1982. Our analyses also controlled for selection effects and explored two mechanisms through which spousal migration can affect healthcare utilization for women, remittances and frequent contact with spouses. We found that women with migrant spouses were approximately half as likely to lack needed healthcare compared to women whose spouses remained in Bangladesh (predicted probability of not getting needed healthcare 11.7% vs. 21.8%, p

Suggested Citation

  • Heidi S West & Mary E Robbins & Corrina Moucheraud & Abdur Razzaque & Randall Kuhn, 2021. "Effects of spousal migration on access to healthcare for women left behind: A cross-sectional follow-up study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-20, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0260219
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260219
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0260219
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0260219&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0260219?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adams, Richard Jr. & Page, John, 2005. "Do international migration and remittances reduce poverty in developing countries?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(10), pages 1645-1669, October.
    2. Jude Eggoh & Chrysost Bangake & Gervasio Semedo, 2019. "Do remittances spur economic growth? Evidence from developing countries," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 391-418, May.
    3. Simon Feeny & Sasi Iamsiraroj & Mark McGillivray, 2014. "Remittances and Economic Growth: Larger Impacts in Smaller Countries?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(8), pages 1055-1066, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kocsis, Emily & Garcia-Barrios, Joshua & Aguilar, Rony & Wyngaarden, Sara & Neufeld, Hannah & Little, Matthew & Dodd, Warren, 2026. "A system dynamics approach for examining the health implications of male out-migration on non-migrating household members in the Western Highlands of Guatemala," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 395(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hicham Ayad & Amina Bendahmane & Mohamed Driouche Dahmani, 2025. "Interactive Impacts of Remittance Inflows on Economic Growth in Algeria: Is the N-shaped Hypothesis Valid?," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2025(4), pages 584-614.
    2. Iordache Mihaela & Matei Mihaela & Țiţan Emilia, 2023. "Global Connections: Examining the Role of Remittances in Economic development," Journal of Social and Economic Statistics, Paradigm, vol. 12(2), pages 53-71, December.
    3. Erika Roxana Ehberger, 2026. "The impact of remittances on the informal economy in Latin America: A dynamic nonlinear analysis," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 1-28, July.
    4. Kevin Williams, 2025. "Empirical regularities of remittances in developing countries," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 1-50, October.
    5. Sima Rani Dey & Faroque Ahmed & Mohammad Tareque & Md. Moniruzzaman, 2024. "Impact of Returnee Remittances on Migrant Households’ Well-Being in Bangladesh," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 36(6), pages 1545-1572, December.
    6. D. O. Olayungbo & Ahmod Quadri, 2019. "Remittances, financial development and economic growth in sub-Saharan African countries: evidence from a PMG-ARDL approach," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 5(1), pages 1-25, December.
    7. Farroukh, Arafet & Mazioued, Manel & Pédussel Wu, Jennifer, 2024. "Revisiting the linkage between remittances inflow and economic growth: A semi-parametric estimation with panel data," IPE Working Papers 238/2024, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    8. Abbas, Syed Ali & Selvanathan, Eliyathamby A. & Selvanathan, Saroja & Bandaralage, Jayatilleke S., 2021. "Are remittances and foreign aid interlinked? Evidence from least developed and developing countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 265-275.
    9. Abbas, Syed Ali & Selvanathan, Saroja & Selvanathan, Eliyathamby A., 2023. "Structural transformation, urbanization, and remittances in developing countries: A panel VAR analysis," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 55-69.
    10. Taiwo, Kayode, 2020. "Do remittances spur economic growth in Africa?," MPRA Paper 111029, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2021.
    11. Md. Qamruzzaman (a) and Wei Jianguo (b), 2020. "Nexus between Remittance and Household Consumption: Fresh Evidence from Symmetric or Asymmetric Investigation," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 45(3), pages 1-27, September.
    12. Naseem, N. A. M. & Wanwan, L. & Nabila, H. & Azman-Saini, W. N. W. & Masron, T. A., 2025. "Do Remittances Boost Productivity? Asymmetric Evidence from Leading Asian Recipient Countries," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, vol. 15(6), pages 874-887, October.
    13. Boniface Linus Akpan, 2025. "Diaspora Remittances and Economic Growth in Nigeria: An Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Approach," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Applied Science, RSIS International, vol. 10(10), pages 2149-2164, October.
    14. Mavrotas, George & Van den Bosch, Catherine, 2022. "The influence of COVID-19 on remittances: potential development outcomes," IOB Discussion Papers 2022.04, Universiteit Antwerpen, Institute of Development Policy (IOB).
    15. Burcak Polat, 2019. "The Impact of Workers' Remittances on Economic Growth: Panel Data Approach for Selected Country Group," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 6(1), pages 45-52, January.
    16. Anil Shrestha & Makoto Kakinaka, 2022. "Remittance Inflows and Energy Transition of the Residential Sector in Developing Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-19, August.
    17. Williams, Kevin, 2017. "Do remittances improve political institutions? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 65-75.
    18. Konte M., 2014. "Do remittances not promote growth? : a bias-adjusted three-step mixture-of-regressions," MERIT Working Papers 2014-075, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    19. Shreya Pal & Muhammed Ashiq Villanthenkodath & Gupteswar Patel & Mantu Kumar Mahalik, 2022. "The impact of remittance inflows on economic growth, unemployment and income inequality: An international evidence," International Journal of Economic Policy Studies, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 211-235, February.
    20. SeyedSoroosh Azizi, 2021. "The impacts of workers’ remittances on poverty and inequality in developing countries," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 969-991, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0260219. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.