Factors Affecting The Health Condition Of Aboriginal Women In Australia

Factor that affect health condition of Aboriginal women in Australia

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As stated by Bradley et al. (2015) Australian women are the most empowered across the globe topped a list of 128 countries for women’s access to education, anti-discrimination policies, childcare and equal pay. They also have a profound impact on the Australian economy. However, the condition was not the same in the previous time as well and even in recent times they are still being paid 17 per cent less than men (Kingsley et al. 2013). They have many official restrictions and family barrier that diminished their growth in the society. According to the 2012 statistics, there are approximately 300,000 Indigenous females living in Australia that is 2.5% of the total female population across the country (Abs.gov.au 2016).

Image 1: Indigenous women in Australia

(Source: Abs.gov.au 2016)

Moreover, there are other factors also affecting the health of Australian indigenous women. Thus, the topic on which the entire literature review is based on is the factor that affects that health of aboriginal women in Australia.

Domestic Violence

Owen and Carrington (2015) portrays that domestic violence and rape in marriage have now become common in Australia. Male dominating people treat their wife like maids and under half a million Australian women reported their experience towards physical or sexual violence or sexual assault. Spangaro et al. (2016) also highlights that since the age of 15, one in five Australian women face sexual violence and in 36% of the cases, the physical abuse and violence are experienced from the family members that affects their health adversely. However, Australia government supports those victims to get a better life and provide them the opportunity for their betterment. Family Law Act 1975 and Family Violence Protection Act 2008 were implemented to save those women against the domestic violence which is further supported by The National Council’s Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2009-2021 (Legislation.vic.gov.au 2016).

Education plays a crucial role in maintain the proper health as this make them aware of the required nutrients according to their age and ability. Owen and Carrington (2015) depict that due to family low income in rural area, indigenous women do not complete their schooling and hence there is a huge gap remains in their acquired knowledge with respect to the non-indigenous women.

Image 2: Australian female school retention until year 12 in 2014

(Source: Abs.gov.au 2016)

Domestic Violence

Gausia et al. (2013) states that 20% of Indigenous females possess a post-school qualification that is 37% in case of non-indigenous women, that results in low employment rate amongst them like 16% of Indigenous females are employed. This employment rate affects their income and a huge portion of that spent in fulfilling family demands that leads to un-fulfilment of theirs demand and a risk for mental dissatisfaction rises that also affect their health.

O’Brien et al. (2013) state that that with culture refers to attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors the society possess towards a particular person or field. In this context, the perception values behavior and believe for women in the Australian culture and the society is highlighted. The majority of the social people have the perception that women group is inferior to men and in some rural region girls and women have to face difficulty in education, workplace and even in the family for their gender. Bugeja et al. (2013) also depicts that even in the cultural events men often harass women and discriminated them on the basis of their gender. Their wellbeing aspect can be seen by the initiatives of the government through the commonwealth funding, local statutory office to monitor and inform the development of the women’s position in the society and availability of independent advocacy organizations and representatives supported by Personal Safety Survey 2012 (2013) (Abs.gov.au 2016).

One of the most crucial aspects on which the women of the society are judged is the ability to become a mother. Ireland et al. (2015) depicts that in traditional days they there is very less information regarding contraceptive knowledge and thus some of the women opt for an abortion of the babies that adversely affect their health of the women. However, in recent times every women are allowed to obtain the knowledge regarding the contraceptive medication through which they do have to make a family plan without prior scheduling and as a result, it easier for women to live independent without being in the event of falling pregnant and opting for abortion.

MacDonald and Charlesworth (2013) depict that in the year the birth rate of the Australia was 1.88 per women which decreases to the rate of 1.80 in the year 2014. In case of the indigenous women, there is a lack of knowledge for the basic medication procedures, which will help them for a successful and painless delivery. As a result, these women can be affected from numerous diseases like Asthma, diabetes, eating disorders, high blood pressure and HIV. Ireland et al. (2015) also depicts that this lack of knowledge will not only affects their health but it will affect the baby, which leads to the complications during delivery. In extreme case, some aboriginal women also lose their life. Moreover, Bradley et al. (2015) also depicts that some indigenous women also feel depression during pregnancy for getting less support from family and thoughts of harming self or baby.

Lack of education

Valeggia and Snodgrass (2015) highlighted the fact that a women body is more prone to health related issues and 15,934 females in the year 2015 are suffered from breast cancer and it is forecasted that 6.5% of all deaths from cancer will occur in 2016 (canceraustralia.gov.au 2016). Moreover, and more of the women are suffering from Gynaecological Cancers like Ovarian cancer, Cervical cancer Vulval cancer and Vaginal cancer and provide national leadership in cancer control and offer scientific improvements to cancer prevention, treatment and care to women through Cancer Australia Act 2006 (canceraustralia.gov.au 2016 and Legislation.gov.au 2016). The government of Australia also passed some regulation not only for young women and mothers from disease but they also have legislations for aged women through Australian Immunisation Register Act 2015 and Australian Aged Care Quality Agency Act 2013 respectively (Health.gov.au 2016).

According to the statistics of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, it is found that every indigenous people in Australia have to undergo with The National Mental Health Plan 2003-2008 where the factors for good emotional wellbeing is evaluated especially for women (Aihw.gov.au 2016). McNair and Bush (2016) further, adds that due to violence from the teenage age most of the women get suffered from mental trauma and some families often refuse to provide shelter to these mentally retarded girls and women. As a result, numerous NGO and help centres are inaugurated where these people are provided development programs and training according to their ability so that they can found an occupation for their advance. These NGO are funded by leading organization and Australian Government. Austen and Ong (2013) depicts hat this not only helps to enhance the situation of the mentally challenged women but it also develops the corporate social responsibility of an organization in the society.

There is a huge population of the elderly people in Australia and over 455,400 people in Australia belong to this group. It is expected by the research that this percentage will be increased by 110% until 2023 (Abs.gov.au 2016). Moreover, Chzhen et al. (2013) depicts that among those statistical data 40% are indigenous women, who worked in the home and as women in rural areas lacks education, they are less likely to get a job during their adolescence and thus do not get pension. In addition to that, McNair and Bush (2016) depicts that the percentage of Australian indigenous women, who rated their health poor increased with age. This poor health may be caused form the domestic violence, burden of family responsibilities and lack of proper nutrition that results in the death of these women with the increasing age. It can be observes from the research done by Spangaro et al. (2016), that aged women of 65-84 years of age suffers more from endocrine-related disorders, cancer and other tumours, respiratory system diseases and cardiovascular disease and those of 85+ age also facing difficulty from Mental disorders. In every case the death cause by these disease are more than 10% and the rate is high for cardiovascular disease which exceeded to 48.6% (Health.gov.au 2016).

Physical violence in socioeconomic and cultural groups

Image 3: Causes of death for elderly people

(Source: Health.gov.au 2016)

Thus, it can be seen that there are some factors through which it can be measured that women are mentally fit and happy. Some of the factors are their ability to adapt to change and act accordingly effectively. Moreover, the conditions of women are not the same in the conventional time compared to today. The health of these indigenous women also depends on their feeling of completeness and contentment and successfully manages the family responsibility. The health experts also emphasizes on the factor that whether they develop a feeling of self-confidence and positive self-esteem and come up with innovative ideas to make themselves happy. This can be measured by the offering of appropriate education, suitable designation, salary and respect from their family members so that they can aware of the required items for them to develop a good health.

Reference List

Abs.gov.au., 2016. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Government. [online] Available at: https://www.abs.gov.au/ [Accessed 6 Sep. 2016].

Aihw.gov.au., 2016. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. [online] Available at: https://www.aihw.gov.au/ [Accessed 2 Sep. 2016].

Austen, S. and Ong, R., 2013. The effects of ill health and informal care roles on the employment retention of mid-life women: Does the workplace matter?. Journal of Industrial Relations, 55(5), pp.663-680.

Bradley, P., Dunn, S., Lowell, A. and Nagel, T., 2015. Acute mental health service delivery to Indigenous women: What is known?. International journal of mental health nursing, 24(6), pp.471-477.

Bugeja, L., Butler, A., Buxton, E., Ehrat, H., Hayes, M., McIntyre, S.J. and Walsh, C., 2013. The implementation of domestic violence death reviews in Australia. Homicide studies, 17(4), pp.353-374.

canceraustralia.gov.au. (2016). canceraustralia.gov.au. [online] Available at: https://canceraustralia.gov.au/affected-cancer/cancer-types/breast-cancer/breast-cancer-statistics [Accessed 2 Sep. 2016].

Chzhen, Y., Mumford, K. and Nicodemo, C., 2013. The Gender Pay Gap in the Australian Private Sector: Is Selection Relevant Across the Earnings Distribution?. Economic Record, 89(286), pp.367-381.

Gausia, K., Thompson, S., Nagel, T., Rumbold, A., Connors, C., Matthews, V., Boyle, J., Schierhout, G. and Bailie, R., 2013. Antenatal emotional wellbeing screening in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health care services in Australia. Contemporary nurse, 46(1), pp.73-82.

Health.gov.au., 2016. Department of Health | Major health issues faced by Australian women. [online] Available at: https://www.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/womens-health-policy-toc~womens-health-policy-key~womens-health-policy-key-major [Accessed 6 Sep. 2016].

Ireland, S., Narjic, C.W., Belton, S., Saggers, S. and McGrath, A., 2015. ‘Jumping around’: exploring young women’s behaviour and knowledge in relation to sexual health in a remote Aboriginal Australian community.Culture, health & sexuality, 17(1), pp.1-16.

Kingsley, J., Townsend, M., Henderson-Wilson, C. and Bolam, B., 2013. Developing an exploratory framework linking Australian Aboriginal peoples’ connection to country and concepts of wellbeing. International journal of environmental research and public health, 10(2), pp.678-698.

Legislation.gov.au., 2016. Cancer Australia Act 2006. [online] Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2006A00035 [Accessed 2 Sep. 2016].

MacDonald, F. and Charlesworth, S., 2013. Equal pay under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth): mainstreamed or marginalised. UNSWLJ, 36, p.563.

McNair, R.P. and Bush, R., 2016. Mental health help seeking patterns and associations among Australian same sex attracted women, trans and gender diverse people: a survey-based study. BMC psychiatry, 16(1), p.209.

O’Brien, K.L., Cohen, L., Pooley, J.A. and Taylor, M.F., 2013. Lifting the domestic violence cloak of silence: Resilient Australian women’s reflected memories of their childhood experiences of witnessing domestic violence.Journal of Family Violence, 28(1), pp.95-108.

Owen, S. and Carrington, K., 2015. Domestic violence (DV) service provision and the architecture of rural life: an Australian case study. Journal of Rural Studies, 39, pp.229-238.

Spangaro, J., Herring, S., Koziol-Mclain, J., Rutherford, A., Frail, M.A. and Zwi, A.B., 2016. ‘They aren’t really black fellas but they are easy to talk to’: Factors which influence Australian Aboriginal women’s decision to disclose intimate partner violence during pregnancy. Midwifery, 41, pp.79-88.

Valeggia, C.R. and Snodgrass, J.J., 2015. Health of indigenous peoples.Annual Review of Anthropology, 44, pp.117-135.