3.1 Gender analysis frameworks

Gender analysis in health seeks to identify how gender norms and power relations lead to different experiences of health and health systems. Morgan et al.’s framework (2016), summarised in Table 1, shows how gender power relations affect access to resources, division of labour, norms, values, power negotiation and laws and institutions, and how each of these influence health and health systems.

Table 1 What constitutes gendered power relations? Gender as a power relation and driver of inequality (Morgan et al., 2016).
Who has what? Access to resources: education, information, skills, income, employment, services, benefits, time, space, social capital, etc.
Who does what? Division of labour within and beyond the household and everyday practices
How are values defined? Social norms, ideologies, beliefs and perceptions
Who decides? Rules and decision-making, both formal and informal
How power is negotiated and changed (individual/people) Critical consciousness, acknowledgement/lack of acknowledgement, agency/apathy, interests, historical and lived experiences, resistance or violence
How power is negotiated and changed (structural/environment) Legal and policy status, institutionalisation within planning and programmes, funding, accountability mechanisms

The aspects of gendered power relations in Table 1 are also influenced by other diverse social factors. An intersectional health lens highlights the ways that these social factors (including gender, race and class) interact and overlap to influence health.

3 Introduction to gender as a social determinant of health

3.2 Intersectionality