Child Survival, Poverty and Policy Options from DHS Surveys in Kenya: 1993-2003

Jane Kabubo-Mariara, Margaret M. Karienyeh and Francis K. Mwangi

Working Papers PMMA from PEP-PMMA

Abstract: This paper analyses multidimensional aspects of child poverty in Kenya. We carry out poverty and inequality comparisons for child survival and also use the parametric survival model to explain childhood mortality using DHS data. The results of poverty comparisons show that: children with the lowest probability of survival are from households with the lowest level of assets; and poverty orderings for child survival by assets are robust to the choice of the poverty line and to the measure of wellbeing. Inequality analysis suggests that there is less mortality inequality among children facing mortality than children who are better off. The survival model results show that child and maternal characteristics, and household assets are important correlates of childhood mortality. The results further show that health care services are crucial for child survival. Policy simulations suggest that there is potential for making some progress in reducing mortality, but the ERS and MDG targets cannot be achieved.

Keywords: Child survival; multidimensional poverty; inequality; stochastic dominance; childhood mortality; asset index; Kenya (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 I12 I32 I38 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev, nep-hap and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://portal.pep-net.org/documents/download/id/12050 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lvl:pmmacr:2008-01

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers PMMA from PEP-PMMA Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Manuel Paradis ().