Fig. 2

Conceptual framework of social power and equality in relationships and the impact of concordance or discordance in the relationship on health outcomes. Note: “Women +” refers to women’s endorsement of these gender variables as measured in our survey, while “Women -” refers to lack of endorsement. Similarly, “Men +” refers to men’s endorsement while “Men -” refers to their lack of endorsement of gender power dynamic variables. We hypothesize that men carry more social power in patriarchal societies than women, and that endorsing positive gender variables relates to greater equality within the relationship/marriage. We highlight here that it is the overlap and lack thereof of their gender variable endorsement (concordance or discordance of responses) that is of interest in this analysis of health outcomes