Women’S political empowerment and child health
Although increasing women’s representation in political decision-making has the potential to significantly improve child health and development in LMIC, existing evidence is almost exclusively observational with little to know knowledge on the exact mechanisms linking both dimensions. To address this important knowledge gap, the EPOCH project will use a highly inter-disciplinary approach in combination with state-of-the-art quasi-experimental methods and detailed cross-national information of electoral outcomes with micro-data on child health and development. Strong evidence on the effects of women’s political representation on child health and development could be important for advancing the twin Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of ending preventable deaths of children under five years of age and ensuring women’s full and effective participation at all levels of decision-making. After working several years in the United States and Latin America, for the Marie Curie Reintegration Fellowship, the applicant will return to Europe to work at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute / University of Basel under the supervision of Prof. Günther Fink, a worldwide leading researcher on child health and development in LMIC. The applicant will gain knowledge of a new promising research field and gain new skills and competencies in the form of quasi-experimental methods for policy evaluation, publishing in high-impact general discipline journals, dissemination as well as writing of major grants. The applicant will enrich the host institutions by providing teaching and supervision activities as well as by fostering research collaborations with Latin America. The planned activities will position the applicant as a leading inter-disciplinary scholar of demography and population health with excellent prospects for attracting a major research grant, leading an independent research group and/or getting a tenure track position at a leading research university in Europe.