Does Mother’s Schooling Raise Child Health in Slums? Evidence from India

Yu-hsuan Su, University of Washington
Claus C. Pörtner, Seattle University

We use data from the 2005-06 National Family Health Survey to study the relationship between maternal education and child health in India, focusing on the differences between rural, urban, and urban slum areas. For rural and urban areas increasing maternal education significantly improves child health, with the effect of an additional year of education significantly higher in urban areas than in rural areas. This effect does not hold in slum areas. Children of mother's with no education do significantly better in slums than in rural areas, but education affect health substantially less in slums than in rural or urban areas. Only for women with high levels of education, more than 10 years, is the effect of education on child health statistically significant. This effect masks large difference between boys and girls with the marginal effect of education for boys close to zero. We examine different explanations for these results.