Being Born Out-of-Wedlock: Does it affect a Child’s Survival Chance? An Empirical Investigation for Senegal

(english) In this paper, we are interested in the effect of birth status, being born out-of-wedlock or in wedlock, on survival chance before two years old of siblings of same gender in Senegal. The analysis is based on nationally representative data, those from the Demographic and health survey, collected in the country in 2010-2011. Data from the youngest cohort of mothers are exploited. On average, no significant effect is found. This masks significant variations between sub-groups of children. However, contrary to initial expectations, children born out-of-wedlock have similar mortality rate than their siblings born in wedlock, at worst. In some case, their mortality rate is lower. This suggests that resource-based mechanisms exist in Senegal that helps mothers, with an out-of-wedlock birth, to compensate and sometime over-compensate for lack of resource or for fragility. These mechanisms seem to vary between areas and ethnic groups depending on the gender of the child born out-ofwedlock. The only group of children with a higher risk of death is the group of girls born out-ofwedlock, whose mother was adolescent when giving birth to them, belonging to the Serere ethnic group. Informal, private compensatory mechanism does not seem to take place in this specific case. _________________________________ (français) Cet article s'intéresse aux conséquences du statut à la naissance, être né dans le cadre d'une union maritale ou non, sur les chances de survie au cours des deux premières années de vie d'enfants de même sexe et issus d'une même fratrie au Sénégal. L'analyse est réalisée à partir des données des enquêtes démographiques et de santé collectées dans le pays en 2010-2011 et représentatives au niveau national. L'échantillon utilisé pour l'analyse est celui des mères appartenant aux plus jeunes cohortes. En moyenne, nous n'observons pas d'impact significatif d'être né hors mariage sur la mortalité des enfants relativement à leurs frères et soeurs de même sexe nés (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)