Analysis of Impact of Female Education and Labour Force Participation on Disparities in Under-Five Mortality Rate among Selected African Countries

Abstract

The role of female education is crucial for the development of any country, especially for the third-world countries. The objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of female education and female labour force participation disparities serving as key influential factors of under-five mortality among some selected developing countries in Africa. Annual panel data sets of the selected countries from the year 2000 to 2017 were used for the study. The panel random effect model was used to estimate the polled data for the selected countries. Moreover, the time series multiple regression analysis was used to estimate the predictors of the disparities of under-five mortalities in the individual countries.  The study also examined the major causes of the disparities in under-five mortality among the selected countries by emphasizing on female education as major predator of the disparities inter-alia some key control variables such as gross domestic product(GDP) per capita, educational expenditure, female labour force participation, and gross fixed capital. The paper concludes that female primary school enrolment and labour force participation are statistically significant and predominately strong predators of the disparities in the rate of under-five mortality among the selected countries.  The study further recommends that health policies to reduce child mortality should be designed inter-alia with educational policies since education makes an individual more conscious about their health.

Keywords: Female education; Under-five mortality; Female labour force participation, Education expenditure, Economic growth, Panel analysis.

DOI: 10.7176/PPAR/9-3-14

Publication date:March 31^st 2019