Maternal education and child mortality in Zimbabwe

Karen A. Grépin and Prashant Bharadwaj

Journal of Health Economics, 2015, vol. 44, issue C, 97-117

Abstract: In 1980, Zimbabwe rapidly expanded access to secondary schools, providing a natural experiment to estimate the impact of increased maternal secondary education on child mortality. Exploiting age specific exposure to these reforms, we find that children born to mothers most likely to have benefited from the policies were about 21% less likely to die than children born to slightly older mothers. We also find that increased education leads to delayed age at marriage, sexual debut, and first birth and that increased education leads to better economic opportunities for women. We find little evidence supporting other channels through which increased education might affect child mortality. Expanding access to secondary schools may greatly accelerate declines in child mortality in the developing world today.

Keywords: Maternal education; Returns to education; Child mortality; Fertility; Natural experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I15 I26 J13 N37 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (86)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:44:y:2015:i:c:p:97-117

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2015.08.003

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