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The impact of democracy and media freedom on under-5 mortality, 1961–2011

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  • Wigley, Simon
  • Akkoyunlu-Wigley, Arzu

Abstract

Do democracies produce better health outcomes for children than autocracies? We argue that (1) democratic governments have an incentive to reduce child mortality among low-income families and (2) that media freedom enhances their ability to deliver mortality-reducing resources to the poorest. A panel of 167 countries for the years 1961–2011 is used to test those two theoretical claims. We find that level of democracy is negatively associated with under-5 mortality, and that that negative association is greater in the presence of media freedom. These results are robust to the inclusion of country and year fixed effects, time-varying control variables, and the multiple imputation of missing values.

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  • Wigley, Simon & Akkoyunlu-Wigley, Arzu, 2017. "The impact of democracy and media freedom on under-5 mortality, 1961–2011," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 237-246.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:190:y:2017:i:c:p:237-246
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.08.023
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