Effects of Maternal Education, Women's Roles, and Child Care on Child Mortality

In the developing world there is now clear evidence of differentials in child survival rates associated with the education of mothers. Data from Latin America (Behm, 1976-78; Haines and Avery, 1978), Africa (Caldwell, 1979; Farah and Preston, 1982), and Asia (Cochrane, 1980; Caldwell and McDonald, 1981) all show a negative relationship between the extent of maternal education and the level of child mortality, although the amount of education required to produce a significant reduction in mortality varies from culture to culture. Evidence of a relationship between women's roles and the mortality of their children is much harder to obtain and to interpret. For a start, while educational levels do not regress and normally remain constant once women have attained maturity, women's roles may vary greatly over time, and data on current status may bear little relationship to the situation at the time when the death occurred or when the child's health first began to decline. For this reason it is not possible, as in the case of education, to make use of data gathered in the vast range of fertility surveys that are now available. To study the relationship between women's roles and the mortality of their children, one should ideally have data for each child extending from birth to age 5, or to death where that came first. Some alternative approaches are discussed below, but is should be recognized that disentangling cause from effect in this area will always require a sophisticated analytical approach and an in-depth knowledge of the culture involved.