Introduction <p>This study applied survival analyses within a generalized structural equation modeling (GSEM) framework to examine the association between women’s social independence and timing of ANC initiation, considering healthcare access barriers as a mediator. </p> Materials and methods <p>This analysis extracted data from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2022 and analyzed 5,063 mothers who had given a live birth in three years preceding the survey. A GSEM with Weibull accelerated failure time model assessed the relation between women’s social independence and time to ANC initiation, using bootstrapped bias-corrected standard errors for mediated and total effects. However, the main exposure was women’s social independence, constructed by combining three dimensions: socio-economic condition (education, economic and life-course factors, and access to resources), decision-making autonomy (household and healthcare decisions), and asset ownership (land or house ownership).</p> Results <p>The median time to ANC initiation was found approximately 17.40 weeks in Bangladesh, with only 19.38% initiating ANC within the WHO-recommended 12 weeks. Women’s social independence showed a significant association with both healthcare access barriers and ANC initiation time. The acceleration factor of women with higher levels was 0.76 (95% Confidence interval, CI: 0.73–0.79), indicating earlier ANC initiation compared with their less independent counterparts. Women’s social independence showed limited mediation through health access barriers with acceleration factor of 0.97 (95% CI: 0.95–0.99), corresponding to about 0.52 weeks earlier (higher vs. lower) ANC initiation.</p> Conclusion <p>Female education, women’s autonomy, resource access, ANC subsidies, microfinance programs should be prioritized to reduce delays in ANC initiation.</p>