Impact of Maternal Education and Health-related Behaviours on Infant and Child Survival in Pakistan

This paper uses data from the 1990/91 Pakistan Demographic Health Survey (PDHS) to examine the importance of socioeconomic, behavioural and biodemographic factors in the determination of neonatal, infant and child mortality in Pakistan with special focus on maternal education and health seeking behaviour. The central hypothesis of the study is that education of mother and health seeking behaviour are very important for the survival of children in settings such as Pakistan. Units of analysis are children born in the past 5 years to DHS respondents (women aged 15-49) who were married at the time of the survey. The Cox proportional hazards regression technique has been used to estimate the net effects of variables included as covariates. The findings indicate that the education of mother has significant effect on the neonatal, infant and child survival as mother’s education increases, the chances of survival of neonatal, infant and child also increases. Health care factors such as antenatal care, age at mother at first birth, breastfeeding and immunisation also influence neonatal, infant and child survival. The paper suggests that for the improvement of the health conditions of children in Pakistan, first, it is necessary that the educational status of the population in general, and of mothers in particular, should be improved, and second, the health services should be accessible and available for the promotion of health care practices.