Access to non-pecuniary benefits: does gender matter? Evidence from six low- and middle-income countries

The analysis draws on cross-nationally comparable data from health facility surveys conducted in Chad, C？te d'Ivoire, Jamaica, Mozambique, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. Probit regression models are used to investigate whether female and male physicians, nurses and midwives enjoy the same access to housing allowance, paid vacations, in-service training and other benefits, controlling for other individual and facility-level characteristics.While the analysis did not uncover any consistent pattern of gender imbalance in access to non-monetary benefits, some important differences were revealed. Notably, female nursing and midwifery personnel (the majority of the sample) are found significantly less likely than their male counterparts to have accessed in-service training, identified not only as an incentive to attract and retain workers but also essential for strengthening workforce quality.This study sought to mainstream gender considerations by exploring and documenting sex differences in selected employment indicators across health labour markets. Strengthening the global evidence base about the extent to which gender is independently associated with health workforce performance requires improved generation and dissemination of sex-disaggregated data and research with particular attention to gender dimensions.The importance of an available, competent and motivated health workforce is increasingly recognized for countries to meet their health systems objectives and achieve improved population health outcomes. In many contexts, women comprise the strong majority, often over 75%, of the health workforce [1,2]. At the same time, most health systems worldwide continue to experience occupational clustering by sex, with higher skilled medical personnel usually dominated by men, while nursing, midwifery and other 'caring' cadres are typically over-represented by women [3]. Yet gender issues remain a neglected area in most approaches to human resources for health (HRH) policy, plann