Effect of Education on the Health of Children Under-Five Years: Some Evidence from Ghana

Abstract

The conditions of child health have improved around the globe with the passage of time. Though this improvement in children‘s health has also been witnessed in Ghana, it has been slow and unevenly distributed across the country. Ghana‘s child health indicators are still below the average conditions that prevail worldwide. The under-five mortality rate in Ghana is still higher than the average rate around the world and a relatively higher percentage of the children below age five in Ghana suffer from Acute Respiratory Infection, diarrhoea and fever than their counterparts in other parts of the world. On the average, a child in Ghana is more at risk of stunting, wasting or being malnourished than the average child worldwide. Considering the immense significance of children to the survival of our society, the development of a strong labour force and the future economic development, policies must be developed to remedy the situation. Health is multidimensional in nature, ranging from biological to social and psychological dimensions. A number of factors have been investigated to determine their effect on child health and maternal education is one of the prominent factors that have often been mentioned. However, the influence of maternal education on child health in Ghana is largely unknown and as a result, child health policies in Ghana have ignored maternal education. This study investigates the effect of maternal education on under-five mortality, prevalence of ARI, incidence of diarrhoea and occurrence of fever using logistic regression. The findings reveals that higher maternal education significantly reduces the occurrence of mortality, incidence of diarrhoea, prevalence of ARI and occurrence of fever among children below age five in Ghana. Hence, the study urges policy makers to encourage higher female education through the use of direct and indirect incentives. Education should also be made accessible to every female, whilst the disparity in economic and social conditions that prevail among households should be evened out.