Essays on childhood immunization, mortality, and human capital accumulation: A natural experiment from India
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| Publicado en: | ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (2009) |
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ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
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| Acceso en línea: | Citation/Abstract Full Text - PDF |
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| Resumen: | This dissertation is a collection of two essays that study the effects of childhood immunization program on children's and women's outcomes. The first chapter examines the impact of immunization program on children's outcomes such as child mortality and education. In the mid-1980s, the Indian government embarked on one of the largest childhood immunization programs-called "Universal Immunization Program" (UIP)-in order to reduce the high mortality and morbidity among children. I examine the effect of this immunization program on child mortality and educational attainment by exploiting district-by-cohort variation in exposure to the program. Results indicate that exposure to the program reduced infant mortality by 0.4 percentage points and under-five child mortality by 0.5 percentage points. These effects on mortality are sizable—they account for approximately one-fifth of the decline in infant and under-five child mortality rates between 1985-1990. The effects are more pronounced in rural areas, for poor people, and for members of historically disadvantaged groups. While the program clearly reduced mortality, it had mixed effects on children's educational outcomes. I find it had a negative impact on primary school completion, but a positive impact on secondary school completion. The negative effect at low levels of schooling may be due to lower average health among marginal surviving children or a quantity-quality trade-off where the unanticipated survival of children induces families to under-invest in each child. The greater propensity to complete secondary school on the other hand may be due to improved health among those farther away from the margin of survival. The first chapter examines the impact of immunization program on women's outcomes such as fertility and birth spacing. What are the effects of childhood immunization program (UIP) on women's fertility and birth spacing? I examine the effect of this immunization program on women's subsequent fertility and birth spacing by exploiting district-by-cohort variation in exposure to the program. The results indicate that exposure of the first-born child to the immunization program reduces the likelihood of subsequent and cumulative fertility of women and increases the birth intervals between first and second births. The effects are more pronounced in urban areas. The significant program effect on fertility and birth intervals can be explained in terms of reduction in child mortality due to the immunization program. Kumar (2009) finds that UIP has a significant and negative effect on infant and under-five mortality. |
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| ISBN: | 9781109205800 |
| Fuente: | ABI/INFORM Global |