IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/injoed/v118y2025ics0738059325001981.html

School education for mothers: How much is needed to promote child survival and health?

Author

Listed:
  • Rao, Nirmala
  • Dong, Shuyang
  • Yang, Hyunwoo
  • Bala, Manya
  • Liu, Jichen

Abstract

The current study investigates whether a specific threshold level of school education for mothers is necessary to reduce under-five mortality (U5MR) and stunting significantly. This study utilized data from 153 countries and territories for the years 2000–2019, sourced from the Global Burden of Disease 2019, the 2023 Joint Malnutrition Estimates, and the 2023 United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation. A binary categorisation was used for stunting and U5MR. Maternal education was measured as the number of years of schooling completed by mothers and was categorized into four levels. We employed spline regression and hierarchical linear modelling with maternal education as the predictor for the two child outcomes. Between 2000 and 2019: (i) the mean number of years of maternal education increased from 6.8 to 9.2; (ii) U5MR decreased from 66.64 deaths per 1000 live births to 32.56; and (iii) stunting prevalence decreased from 26.49 % to 18.14 %. Significant decreases in the predicted probabilities of both child outcomes were observed when mothers had 0–5 and 6–8 years of education, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Eight or nine years of schooling, or mothers’ completion of lower-secondary education, were required to achieve globally agreed-upon goals for U5MR and stunting. The quantity of maternal education required to observe decreases in both outcomes increased between 2000 and 2009 and 2010–2019. The link between maternal education and child outcomes also varied by region and country income level, underscoring the importance of context in child survival and health. In conclusion, lower-secondary education equips today’s girls—the mothers of tomorrow—with essential human, social, and cultural capital to address global child health challenges sustainably.

Suggested Citation

  • Rao, Nirmala & Dong, Shuyang & Yang, Hyunwoo & Bala, Manya & Liu, Jichen, 2025. "School education for mothers: How much is needed to promote child survival and health?," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:injoed:v:118:y:2025:i:c:s0738059325001981
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2025.103400
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059325001981
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2025.103400?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grépin, Karen A. & Bharadwaj, Prashant, 2015. "Maternal education and child mortality in Zimbabwe," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 97-117.
    2. Cleland, John G. & van Ginneken, Jerome K., 1988. "Maternal education and child survival in developing countries: The search for pathways of influence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 27(12), pages 1357-1368, January.
    3. Alderman, Harold & Headey, Derek D., 2017. "How Important is Parental Education for Child Nutrition?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 448-464.
    4. Le, Kien & Nguyen, My, 2020. "Shedding light on maternal education and child health in developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    5. Arendt, Jacob Nielsen & Christensen, Mads Lybech & Hjorth-Trolle, Anders, 2021. "Maternal education and child health: Causal evidence from Denmark," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    6. Boyle, Michael H. & Racine, Yvonne & Georgiades, Katholiki & Snelling, Dana & Hong, Sungjin & Omariba, Walter & Hurley, Patricia & Rao-Melacini, Purnima, 2006. "The influence of economic development level, household wealth and maternal education on child health in the developing world," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(8), pages 2242-2254, October.
    7. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Grytten, Jostein & Skau, Irene, 2025. "Mothers’ level of education and infant health. Causal effects of the introduction of a school reform in Norway," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 386(C).
    2. Hang Thu Nguyen-Phung & Yijun Yu & Phuc H. Nguyen & Hai Le, 2026. "Maternal education and child survival: causal evidence from Kenya," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 99-129, March.
    3. Nguyen-Phung, Hang Thu, 2023. "The impact of maternal education on child mortality: Evidence from an increase tuition fee policy in Vietnam," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    4. Hanbo Wu, 2022. "The Effect of Maternal Education on Child Mortality in Bangladesh," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 48(2), pages 475-503, June.
    5. Tadadjeu, Sosson & Njangang, Henri & Asongu, Simplice A. & Kamguia, Brice, 2023. "Natural resources, child mortality and governance quality in African countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    6. Jayanta Kumar Bora & Rajesh Raushan & Wolfgang Lutz, 2019. "The persistent influence of caste on under-five mortality: Factors that explain the caste-based gap in high focus Indian states," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(8), pages 1-20, August.
    7. Breen, Richard & Ermisch, John, 2021. "Instrumental Variable Estimation in Demographic Studies: The LATE interpretation of the IV estimator with heterogenous effects," SocArXiv vx9m7, Center for Open Science.
    8. Hang Thu Nguyen‐Phung & Yijun Yu & Phuc H. Nguyen & Hai Le, 2026. "Maternal Education and Child Development: Insights From Nutritional Status in Kenya," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(5), pages 778-795, May.
    9. Griffiths, Paula L. & Johnson, William & Cameron, Noël & Pettifor, John M. & Norris, Shane A., 2013. "In urban South Africa, 16 year old adolescents experience greater health equality than children," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 502-514.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Elodie Djemai & Yohan Renard & Anne-Laure Samson, 2023. "Mothers and fathers: education, co-residence, and child health," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(4), pages 2609-2653, October.
    13. Chandan Kumar & Prashant Kumar Singh & Rajesh Kumar Rai, 2012. "Under-Five Mortality in High Focus States in India: A District Level Geospatial Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(5), pages 1-15, May.
    14. Aysıt Tansel & Deniz Karaoğlan, 2019. "The Effect of Education on Health Behaviors and Obesity in Turkey: Instrumental Variable Estimates from a Developing Country," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 31(5), pages 1416-1448, December.
    15. Chalasani, Satvika, 2012. "Understanding wealth-based inequalities in child health in India: A decomposition approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(12), pages 2160-2169.
    16. Carolyn Chisadza & Matthew Clance & Fritz van der Merwe & Eleni Yitbarek, 2023. "Ruggedness and child health outcomes: Evidence from Burundi, Cameroon, Ethiopia and Nigeria," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 91(4), pages 498-527, December.
    17. 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.
    18. Simona Rasciute, 2023. "Parental education and child health: The exploration of the cross‐gender intergenerational transmission mechanism," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(4), pages 642-658, November.
    19. Emily Smith-Greenaway & Christie Sennott, 2016. "Death and Desirability: Retrospective Reporting of Unintended Pregnancy After a Child’s Death," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(3), pages 805-834, June.
    20. Ding, Xiaozhou & Song, Yaxiang, 2025. "Maternal education and early childhood outcomes in China," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).

    More about this item

    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:injoed:v:118:y:2025:i:c:s0738059325001981. 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.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-educational-development .

    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.