Changes in Mortality among Children under Five Years from 1996 to 2006 in Benin: The Role of Mother’s Education

Fortuné Sossa, Université de Montréal
Mira Johri, Université de Montréal

Even though the role of mother's education on child mortality have been studied at different points in time, the understanding about how this relationship varies according to the mothers age group remain empirically less documented. The attention related to different age group of mothers is likely to reflect heterogeneity in the relationship between mother's education and child survival as the dominant approaches tend to hide. Using data from two DHS, we attempt to fill this gap by investigating in the differences of child mortality by mother's age group over time for each educational attainment. A random effects model is proposed to control the unobserved family-level factors. The findings of this model confirm the hypothesis that the effects of mother's education on child survival varies across mothers age group over time. In particular, reducing the child mortality risk in 2006 was most remarkable among young mothers.