tailieunhanh - Parental Education and Child Health: Evidence from China*

The mention of specific companies or of certain manufacturers’ products does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by the World Health Organization in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned. Errors and omissions excepted, the names of proprietary products are distinguished by initial capital letters. All reasonable precautions have been taken by the World Health Organization to verify the information contained in this publication. However, the published material is being distributed without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied. The responsibility for the interpretation and use of the material lies with the. | Asian Economic Journal 2006 Vol. 20 No. 1 47-74 47 Parental Education and Child Health Evidence from China Pushkar Maitra Xiujian Peng and Yaer Zhuang Received 31 May 2004 accepted 4 November 2005 This paper examines the effect of parental household and community characteristics on the health of children in China. We find that birth order death of elder siblings use of prenatal care and alcohol consumption by the mother when pregnant have statistically significant effects on the health of children. Although parental education does not have a significant direct effect on child health it does affect mothers behavior during pregnancy and influences the use of health inputs indirectly impacting the health of children. The research findings have important implications for both family planning programs and broader social policies in China. Keywords parental education child health China. JEL classification codes J1 C31 C35. I. Introduction Child health has important effects on learning on labor productivity as adults and more importantly on child survival and mortality. Consequently the subject of child health now stands at the centre of the wider issue of household welfare in developing countries. In recent years there has been a large volume of published literature that has examined the determinants of child health. Of particular importance has been the analysis of the relationship between parental education and child Surprisingly the published literature on child health and its determinants in China is rather limited. Since the 1970s research interest in demography has Maitra Department of Economics Monash University Clayton Campus Victoria 3800 Australia. Email . Peng corresponding author Australian Institute for Social Research The University of Adelaide South Australia 5005 Australia. Email . Zhuang China Population Information and Research Centre Beijing 100081 China. Email yaerzh@.