The socio-demographic promise of expanded female education across sub-Saharan Africa

Thesis

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is highly vulnerable to both early childhood mortality and weather shocks as a cause of climate change. The region also exhibits very low levels of women’s status. The demographic literature suggests that maternal education could help reducing child mortality and increasing women’s status, as well as reducing vulnerability to the risks associated with climate change. This thesis contributes to this literature and expands it in several ways. The first essay demonstrates the causal role of maternal education in shaping under-five mortality in Malawi and Uganda. It finds a negative effect that operates through reduced financial barriers to medical care, increased attitudes towards modern health services, and rejection of domestic violence. Moreover, being more educated enhances proximity to a health facility and knowledge about the transmission of AIDS in Malawi, and wealth and improved personal illness control in Uganda. By providing a spatial portrait of male decision-making dominance across SSA, the second essay highlights considerable within and between country heterogeneity in women’s status. Using spatial panel data methods, it also finds evidence that diffusion of norms about family decision-making helps explain declining reports of male decision-making dominance over time and that women’s education and urbanisation are the main channels through which this diffusion occurs. The latter suggests that women’s education and urbanisation are important for the social interaction process leading to the diffusion of norms about family decision-making. The third paper focuses on the in-utero exposure to growing-season droughts and finds that it increases under-five mortality and that the lack of nutritious food among mothers during pregnancy could be driving this effect. It also provides evidence that maternal education may protect against drought-related fatality in early childhood.

Authors: Andriano, L

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-bpyap0w0z
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English