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Maternal Education and Child Health in India: Role of Pathways of Impact

Studies in the past have found a strong positive association between maternal education and child health. What remains contentious is the nature of this relationship. Firstly, how much of the association is due to maternal education serving as a proxy for socioeconomic status and regional factors? Secondly, how does a higher level of maternal education translate into improved child health outcomes? This paper aims to examine these questions by analysing the relationship between mother’s level of education and child height-for-age, or stunting in India. Using a nationwide family and household survey (NFHS-3, 2005-06), I estimate multivariate regressions to examine how the impact of education varies across model specifications. In particular, I examine the role of three pathways in serving as potential mechanisms through which maternal education has a positive impact on child outcomes. These are (1) Information Processing Effects (2) Maternal Autonomy (3) Use of Community Services. I also use fixed effects estimations to account for village level heterogeneity. The results show that a significant portion of the effect of maternal education can in fact be attributed to socioeconomic variables and community level factors. The analysis gives us insightful findings regarding the differential impacts on child health across various categories of maternal education, the role of the pathways, and how these effects change across specifications. The results have relevant policy implications in the context of improving child health status in India.