Early Childbirth, Health Inputs and Child Mortality: Recent Evidence from Bangladesh

Pushkar Maitra and Sarmistha Pal

No 2841, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between early childbearing and child mortality in Bangladesh, a country where adolescent childbearing is of particular concern. We argue that effective use of specific health inputs could however significantly lower child mortality rates even among adolescent women. This offers an attractive policy option particularly when compared to the costly alternative of delaying age at marriage. In particular, we find that women having early childbirth tend to use health inputs differently from all other women. After correcting for this possible selectivity bias, the adverse effects of early childbirth on child mortality are reversed. The favourable effects of use of health inputs however continue remain statistically significant.

Keywords: family formation; adolescent childbearing; hospital delivery; child vaccination; child mortality; selectivity bias; unobserved heterogeneity; correlated estimates (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 I12 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2007-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-dev and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Early Childbirth, Health Inputs and Child Mortality: Recent Evidence from Bangladesh (2007)
Working Paper: Early Childbirth, Health Inputs and Child Mortality: Recent Evidence from Bangladesh (2004)
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