Sociology and Anthropology 3(11): 591-597, 2015 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/sa.2015.031103 Socio-economic Background and Women Empowerment in Cross River State, Nigeria: Implications for Maternal Health, Using Data from the NDHS 2008 David B. Ugal Department of Sociology, Federal University, Nigeria Copyright © 2015 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Abstract Gender equality and women’s empowerment are important indicators in development strategies that focus on poverty reduction and improved maternal health. Despite the importance of these factors to the overall wellbeing of women and the nation, research in this area is neglected. Besides the condition of women in relation to women empowerment, indicators have remained poor in the study area. The study used data from the 2008 national Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS, 2008) to examine the socio-economic condition of women in relation to their level of empowerment and how it affects maternal health outcome in Cross River State. The study utilized data of a representative sample of 735 women of age 15-49. A majority of respondents reported Poor/low socio-economic status ranging from low educational status, unskilled occupation, and low income per month, seasonal employment etc. This affected the level of empowerment in all the indicators – women’s participation in household decision making, their attitude towards wife beating and their attitude towards a wife’s right to refuse sexual intercourse with her husband or partner. These conditions manifest in high maternal morbidity and mortality. These are also responsible for women’s inability to determine number of children, spacing and antenatal care options available to them. These findings are in line with the prevalent scenario in the entire country. There is therefore an urgent need for improving and enhancing women socio-economic condition as it will improve their level of empowerment and will bring about better maternal health status. Keywords Socio Economic Status, Women Empowerment, Maternal Health 1. Background/Statement of the Problem Women’s empowerment is a very crucial and important factor in determining maternal health, poverty reduction, improved standard of living and good governance. In June, 2007 the Federal Government of Nigeria launched the National Gender Policy to promote gender equity and sustainable development. The policy derives essentially from the Constitution of the Federal Republic 1999 which guarantees the fundamental human rights of all its citizens and incorporates the principles of global and regional framework that support equity and women empowerment. The condition of Nigerian women however, shows that they are not often privileged because they often have more difficulty accessing public services such as health care, water supply, sanitation and education. Meanwhile, these are prerequisites for women empowerment and development. Women are often under-represented in public administration, particularly in senior positions. They do not have real voice in most governance institutions from the judiciary to the civil service 1 . In the face of all these, the condition of women especially maternal health is worsening. 1 Posits that Nigeria has one of the worst health indicators in the world as evidenced by its health system performance ranking 187 among 191 member states. 2 Indicated that there are 11,000 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births in Nigeria. It further estimated that every year 59,000 Nigerian women die in child birth – the second (after India). For every woman that dies of pregnancy complications, over twenty suffer lifelong disabilities. The majority of these deaths, as in the rest of the world are preventable though the casual factors may be multiple and complex, however, government must be held accountable when its actions and inactions contribute to this ongoing loss of women’s lives 1 It should be recognized that there are several obstacles standing in the way of women gaining access to maternal health facilities, the most significant being inequality with respect to access to education, discrimination in educational opportunities, employment and occupation, which leads to categorization of jobs according to gender. There is also inequality with respect to access to factors of production, low level of women’s participation in decision-making and social