Women on the Front Lines of Health Care
Why doesn’t the United States do better in the rankings?
The United States ranked 28th this year based on several factors:
␣ One of the key indicators used to calculate well-being for mothers is lifetime risk of maternal death. The United States’ rate for maternal mortality is 1 in 4,800 – one of the highest in the developed world. Thirty-five out of 43 developed countries performed better than the United States on this indicator, including all the Western, Northern and Southern European countries (except Estonia and Albania) as well as Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Hungary, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine. A woman in the Unites States is more than five times as likely as a woman in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece or Italy to die from pregnancy-related causes in her lifetime and her risk of maternal death is nearly 10-fold that of a woman in Ireland.
␣ Similarly, the United States does not do as well as many other countries with regard to under-5 mortality.The U.S. under-5 mortality rate is 8 per 1,000 births.This is on par with rates in Slovakia and Montenegro.Thirty-eight countries performed better than the U.S. on this indicator. At this rate, a child in the U.S. is more than twice as likely as a child in Finland, Iceland, Sweden or Singapore to die before his or her fifth birthday.
␣ The United States has the least generous maternity leave policy – both in terms of duration and percent of wages paid – of any wealthy nation.
␣ The United States is also lagging behind with regard to the political status of women. Only 17 percent of seats in the House of Representatives are held by women, compared to 46 percent of seats in Sweden and 43 percent in Iceland.
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