Maternal Education and Child Mortality in Nigeria

Abstract

Reports have shown that child mortality is still pervasive in Nigeria despite several intervention programmes. While most authors have been preoccupied with searching for long-lasting solutions to the syndrome, this article argues that the relationship that subsists between maternal education and child mortality in Nigeria cannot be fully understood without examining certain background variables of the mothers such as familial, economic and religious factors among others. Data were sourced from the Nigerian Demographic Health Survey of 2013 and were analyzed with both descriptive and inferential statistics. The study found that child mortality is particularly high among mothers without formal education and relatively lower among those with other levels of education although factors such as family size, religious affiliation, wealth index and sex of household head had strong influence on these women.