IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v180y2017icp1-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of women's education on maternal health: Evidence from Peru

Author

Listed:
  • Weitzman, Abigail

Abstract

This article examines the causal effect of women's education on maternal health in Peru, a country where maternal mortality has declined by more than 70% in the last two and a half decades. To isolate the effects of education, the author employs an instrumented regression discontinuity that takes advantage of an exogenous source of variation—an amendment to compulsory schooling laws in 1993. The results indicate that extending women's years of schooling reduced the probability of several maternal health complications at last pregnancy/birth, sometimes by as much as 29%. Underlying these effects, increasing women's education is found to decrease the probability of short birth intervals and unwanted pregnancies (which may result in unsafe abortions) and to increase antenatal healthcare use, potentially owing to changes in women's cognitive skills, economic resources, and autonomy. These findings underscore the influential role of education in reducing maternal morbidity and highlight the contributions of women's education to population health and health transitions.

Suggested Citation

  • Weitzman, Abigail, 2017. "The effects of women's education on maternal health: Evidence from Peru," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 1-9.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:180:y:2017:i:c:p:1-9
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.03.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617301430
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.03.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Saifuddin Ahmed & Andreea A Creanga & Duff G Gillespie & Amy O Tsui, 2010. "Economic Status, Education and Empowerment: Implications for Maternal Health Service Utilization in Developing Countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(6), pages 1-6, June.
    2. Behrman, Julia Andrea, 2015. "The effect of increased primary schooling on adult women's HIV status in Malawi and Uganda: Universal Primary Education as a natural experiment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 108-115.
    3. Esther Duflo, 2001. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 795-813, September.
    4. Onah, Hyacinth Eze & Ikeako, Lawrence C. & Iloabachie, Gabriel C., 2006. "Factors associated with the use of maternity services in Enugu, southeastern Nigeria," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(7), pages 1870-1878, October.
    5. George Psacharopoulos & Harry Anthony Patrinos, 2004. "Returns to investment in education: a further update," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 111-134.
    6. Sarah Baird & Ephraim Chirwa & Craig McIntosh & Berk Özler, 2010. "The short‐term impacts of a schooling conditional cash transfer program on the sexual behavior of young women," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(S1), pages 55-68, September.
    7. Stock, James H & Wright, Jonathan H & Yogo, Motohiro, 2002. "A Survey of Weak Instruments and Weak Identification in Generalized Method of Moments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(4), pages 518-529, October.
    8. Thaddeus, Sereen & Maine, Deborah, 1994. "Too far to walk: Maternal mortality in context," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1091-1110, April.
    9. Gustavo Angeles & David Guilkey & Thomas Mroz, 2005. "The determinants of fertility in rural Peru: Program effects in the early years of the national family planning program," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(2), pages 367-389, June.
    10. Lucia Breierova & Esther Duflo, 2003. "The Impact of Education on Fertility and Child Mortality: Do Fathers Really Matter Less Than Mothers?," OECD Development Centre Working Papers 217, OECD Publishing.
    11. Shen, Ce & Williamson, John B., 1999. "Maternal mortality, women's status, and economic dependency in less developed countries: a cross-national analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 197-214, July.
    12. Julia Behrman, 2015. "Does Schooling Affect Women’s Desired Fertility? Evidence From Malawi, Uganda, and Ethiopia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(3), pages 787-809, June.
    13. Patricia Ames & Vanessa Rojas, 2011. "Cambios y oportunidades: la transición de la escuela primaria a la secundaria en el Perú," Documentos de Trabajo (Niños del Milenio-GRADE) ninosm63, Niños del Milenio (Young Lives).
    14. Sarmistha Pal, 2004. "Child schooling in Peru: Evidence from a sequential analysis of school progression," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(4), pages 657-680, December.
    15. Lundberg, Shelly & Pollak, Robert A, 1993. "Separate Spheres Bargaining and the Marriage Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(6), pages 988-1010, December.
    16. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    17. Raghupathy, Shobana, 1996. "Education and the use of maternal health care in Thailand," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 459-471, August.
    18. Grépin, Karen A. & Bharadwaj, Prashant, 2015. "Maternal education and child mortality in Zimbabwe," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 97-117.
    19. Emily Smith-Greenaway, 2013. "Maternal Reading Skills and Child Mortality in Nigeria: A Reassessment of Why Education Matters," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(5), pages 1551-1561, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sarwat Mumtaz & Jinwook Bahk & Young-Ho Khang, 2019. "Current status and determinants of maternal healthcare utilization in Afghanistan: Analysis from Afghanistan Demographic and Health Survey 2015," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(6), pages 1-14, June.
    2. Dai Binh Tran, 2022. "Health Benefits of Education: Comparative Evidence from Vietnam and Thailand," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, April.
    3. Dai Binh Tran & Sasiwimon Warunsiri Paweenawat, 2023. "The returns to education and wage penalty from overeducation: New evidence from Vietnam," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 1267-1290, October.
    4. Fatema, Kaniz, 2020. "Mass Media Exposure and Maternal Healthcare Utilization in South Asia," SocArXiv 5dhyr, Center for Open Science.
    5. Mohanty, Ranjan Kumar & Behera, Deepak Kumar, 2020. "How Effective is Public Health Care Expenditure in Improving Health Outcome? An Empirical Evidence from the Indian States," Working Papers 20/300, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    6. Thao Bui, 2023. "Compulsory education reform and child mortality in Peru," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(9), pages 1941-1963, September.
    7. Canning, David & Mabeu, Marie Christelle & Pongou, Roland, 2020. "Colonial origins and fertility: can the market overcome history?," MPRA Paper 112496, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Stephanie R. Psaki & Erica Soler-Hampejsek & Jyotirmoy Saha & Barbara S. Mensch & Sajeda Amin, 2019. "The Effects of Adolescent Childbearing on Literacy and Numeracy in Bangladesh, Malawi, and Zambia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(5), pages 1899-1929, October.
    9. Muhammad Fikru Rizal & Nicole Black & David W. Johnston & Rohan Sweeney, 2023. "Long‐term health effects of a school construction program," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(8), pages 1670-1688, August.
    10. Arif Ahmed & Mohammad S. Zahangir, 2019. "The Impact of Education and Residence on Current Use of Contraception in Ethiopian Women," Global Journal of Health Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(9), pages 182-182, August.
    11. Barman, Bikash & Saha, Jay & Chouhan, Pradip, 2020. "Impact of education on the utilization of maternal health care services: An investigation from National Family Health Survey (2015–16) in India," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    12. Emmanuel O. Nwosu & Anthony Orji, 2018. "A Comparative Analysis of Socioeconomic Indicators and Child Nutritional Status in Nigeria’s Geopolitical Zones," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 11(5), pages 1677-1698, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Makate, Marshall & Makate, Clifton, 2016. "The causal effect of increased primary schooling on child mortality in Malawi: Universal primary education as a natural experiment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 72-83.
    2. Sana Khan & Gianna Claudia Giannelli & Lucia Ferrone, 2024. "Can Maternal Education Enhance Children's Dietary Diversity and Nutritional Outcomes? Evidence from 2003 Education Reform in Kenya," Working Papers - Economics wp2024_12.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    3. Bhashkar Mazumder & Maria Fernanda Rosales-Rueda & Margaret Triyana, 2023. "Social Interventions, Health, and Well-Being: The Long-Term and Intergenerational Effects of a School Construction Program," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(4), pages 1097-1140.
    4. Nicholas Ingwersen & Harounan Kazianga & Leigh L. Linden & Arif Mamun & Ali Protik & Matthew Sloan, 2019. "The Long-Term Impacts of Girl-Friendly Schools: Evidence from the BRIGHT School Construction Program in Burkina Faso," NBER Working Papers 25994, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Liliana Andriano & Christiaan W. S. Monden, 2019. "The Causal Effect of Maternal Education on Child Mortality: Evidence From a Quasi-Experiment in Malawi and Uganda," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(5), pages 1765-1790, October.
    6. Baltagi, Badi H. & Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso & Karatas, Haci M., 2019. "The effect of education on health: Evidence from the 1997 compulsory schooling reform in Turkey," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 205-221.
    7. Kazuya Masuda & Chikako Yamauchi, 2017. "The Effects of Female Education on Adolescent Pregnancy and Child Health: Evidence from Uganda fs Universal Primary Education for Fully Treated Cohorts," GRIPS Discussion Papers 17-01, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
    8. Marshall Makate, 2016. "Education Policy and Under-Five Survival in Uganda: Evidence from the Demographic and Health Surveys," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-17, October.
    9. Byaro, Mwoya & Mpeta, Daniel, 2021. "Secondary Education and its Effects on Child Health: Empirical Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 9(2), April.
    10. Fatma Romeh M. Ali & Mahmoud A. A. Elsayed, 2018. "The effect of parental education on child health: Quasi‐experimental evidence from a reduction in the length of primary schooling in Egypt," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 649-662, April.
    11. Harounan Kazianga & Leigh Linden & Ali Protik & Matt Sloan, 2016. "The Medium-Term Impacts of Girl-Friendly Schools: Seven-Year Evidence from School Construction in Burkina Faso," Development Working Papers 406, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano, revised 11 Nov 2016.
    12. Musaddiq, Tareena & Said, Farah, 2023. "Educate the girls: Long run effects of secondary schooling for girls in Pakistan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    13. Andalón, Mabel & Williams, Jenny & Grossman, Michael, 2014. "Empowering Women: The Effect of Schooling on Young Women's Knowledge and Use of Contraception," IZA Discussion Papers 7900, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Adjiwanou, Vissého & Bougma, Moussa & LeGrand, Thomas, 2018. "The effect of partners' education on women's reproductive and maternal health in developing countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 104-115.
    15. Sarah Deschênes & Rozenn Hotte, 2019. "Assessing the Effects of an Education Policy on Women's Well-being: Evidence from Benin," Working Papers halshs-02179704, HAL.
    16. Frederik Wild & David Stadelmann, 2024. "Heterogeneous Effects of Women's Schooling on Fertility, Literacy and Work: Evidence from Burundi's Free Primary Education Policy," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 33(1), pages 67-91.
    17. Chen, Jiwei & Guo, Jiangying, 2022. "The effect of female education on fertility: Evidence from China’s compulsory schooling reform," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    18. Prabal K. De & Muhammed Tümay, 2024. "Education and reproductive health: evidence from schooling expansion in Turkey," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 301-331, June.
    19. Seiro ITO, 2006. "Raising Educational Attainment Of The Poor: Policies And Issues," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 44(4), pages 500-531, December.
    20. Youjin Hahn & Kanti Nuzhat & Hee-Seung Yang, 2018. "The effect of female education on marital matches and child health in Bangladesh," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 915-936, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Peru; Maternal health; Education;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:180:y:2017:i:c:p:1-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.