Causes and Child Health Consequences of Maternal Fertility Choices in Cameroon

Francis Menjo Baye and Dinven Djibril Sitan ()
Additional contact information
Francis Menjo Baye and Dinven Djibril Sitan: Economics and Management, University of Yaounde II

Journal of Economic Development, 2016, vol. 41, issue 4, 79-100

Abstract: This paper examined correlates of fertility choices and the effect of fertility choices on child health status, while controlling for other correlates. Use is made of the 2004 Cameroon Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and the control function econometric approach to address these issues. Results showed that women with twins have higher fertility and fertility choices are strongly negatively correlated with child health. There is an indirect effect of fertility on child health captured by the interaction of fertility with its predicted residual. Mother¡¯s education at both household and community levels was found to be inversely related with maternal fertility but consistent with the production of better child health. Policy implications suggested that expanding public support for social services reaching poor households, would accordingly reduce expected fertility rates and bring about better child health.

Keywords: Maternal Fertility; Child Health; DHS; Cameroon (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://jed.or.kr/full-text/41-4/4.pdf (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:jed:journl:v:41:y:2016:i:4:p:79-100

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Development is currently edited by Sung Y. Park

More articles in Journal of Economic Development from Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sung Y. Park ().