Making Great Strides: Understanding the Increase in Maternal Health Care Service Use in Ghana from 2003 to 2014

Abstract

From 2003 to 2014, the uptake of maternal health services in Ghana increased at an impressive rate. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that this improvement was related to a reduced correlation between socioeconomic status and the likelihood of using maternal health service. The analysis of this hypothesis involved the estimation of the effect of socioeconomic status on maternal healthcare service uptake using a linear probability and probit model and multivariate non-linear Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions. The results of the study would suggest that the hypothesis was mostly incorrect and that the increased maternal healthcare service use was, instead, a positive byproduct of the general improvement in the socioeconomic status of Ghanaians during this time period. In addition, the increase in wealth and urban status played an important role in the improvement socioeconomic status in Ghana from 2003. Surprisingly, education was a fairly weak indictor of socioeconomic status in this study.