Mother's Education and Increased Child Survival in Madagascar: What Can We Say?

Samia Badji

No 1635, Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon

Abstract: This paper aims to assess whether a causal effect exists between maternal education and child survival in Madagascar. The omission of factors such as mother's health, innate ability and time preferences could lead to an overestimation of the true effect of education. The case of sub-Saharan Africa where child mortality rates are the highest, is overlooked by most of the causal evidence gathered so far for developing countries. The present paper attempts to redress this omission through the adoption of a careful empirical strategy. The analysis sheds light on the mechanisms at stake based on information on hygiene practices, housing conditions and the health care administered before, during and after childbirth. The results demonstrate that mothers' education has a positive and strong effect on their offsprings' survival probabilities. Wealth on its own has a strong effect but seems to account for only a third of the effect of maternal education.

Keywords: child mortality; mother's education; Africa; Madagascar (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I12 I26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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ftp://ftp.gate.cnrs.fr/RePEc/2016/1635.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Mother's Education and Increased Child Survival in Madagascar: What Can We Say? (2016)
Working Paper: Mother's Education and Increased Child Survival in Madagascar: What Can We Say? (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gat:wpaper:1635

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