Exploring the relationship between gender and child welfare: A comparative analysis of high and low economic resource countries: Gender and Child Health

This chapter examines the relationship between child health and gender through an analysis of relevant international multidisciplinary literature. Initially, the theoretical context is situated through an examination of the differences between the terms 'sex' and 'gender' and the positioning of gender as a socially constructed rather than a biologically innate phenomenon. The paucity of literature dealing with gender and child health is then evidence and contrasted with research on gender and adult health. Gendered child health differentials and inequalities in the developing countries (of lower economic resource) are then considered, many of these arising from sexist cultural practices. These are then juxtaposed against the substantively different and seemingly more subtle gender health differentials emerging in Western post-industiral nations (of higher economcic resource). The embryonic research analysed here reveals gender as hightly significant in terms of children's self perceptions about health and health care, their cultural and social risk behaviours and how they are perceived and treated by parents and professionals.