Education levels of women – impact on fertility decline, maternal health and child health status: Evidence from south-east Asian countries

Development in the last decade has brought significant changes in health status of the population. Women being an integral part of the society however did not bear fruits of these changes. Around half a million women world-wide still die due to preventable causes and lack of proper health care. Relationship between health status and education of women has been well documented. Education of women has multiple-faceted benefits – in the sense that educated women are empowered to make sound decisions related to age at marriage, fertility behavior, care during pregnancy, and child health.

Main objectives of this research include (1) studying relationship between women's education and their fertility behavior, (2) understand among women with different levels of education their health seeking behavior during pregnancy, and (3) establish association/s between education of mother and gender disparity in child health status.

Data published for south-east Asian countries on population distribution in the past by age, sex and educational attainment from International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), along with the health related data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) are used for this research.

Links between educational attainments of mothers with their health seeking behavior during pregnancy were established. Association between the mother's educational attainment and the morbidity and mortality among the children were also established.

Results show very strong and positive association between educational attainment of mothers and their health seeking behavior. Strong and negative correlations are reported for mother's education with the morbidity and mortality among their children. In some countries, the difference in these variables between uneducated mothers and mothers with some primary education is not significant, though effect of universal effect of secondary education is still significant.

Using these results, population projections were performed using multi-state life table methods with different education and demographic scenarios. We also estimated morbidity and mortality among the children for women with their level of education. Results show expansion of education beyond primary will be a key factor to bring better health and less mortality among the children born in the future. Measures should be taken to initiate and implement policies for expanding secondary education for overall improvement in health of women and children.