The World Bank has produced an analysis of antenatal care use based on wealth quintiles, in which households are categorized by their wealth into five groups each representing 20% of the total population. An analysis of these data shows that use of antenatal care is heavily influenced in the expected direction by wealth in all regions.

Women living in households that fall within the poorest population quintile use antenatal services much less frequently than do those in the richest 20%. The data also show that whereas some degree of wealth differential exists everywhere, the gap between the richest 20% and the poorest 20% for use of antenatal care varies enormously. Particularly steep gradients are observed in Bangladesh, Chad, Egypt, India, Mali, Morocco, Niger and Pakistan. On the other hand, in the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, there is far less variation in use of antenatal care between the poorest and richest population quintiles.