Suchergebnisse

This paper analyzes infant mortality in a unique and highly-detailed data set from Uruguay. A duration model is employed to estimate the relationships between infant mortality and socioeconomic status at the individual, household, and community level. Our results indicate that the most important predictors of infant survival in the first year of life are a full gestational period, mother's educational attainment, marital status (a proxy for family wealth), and the type of hospital used for delivery. We also find that the region where the mother resides (a proxy for community wealth), whether or not the delivery was a multiple delivery, and the gender of the infant are strong predictors of infant mortality in Uruguay. In light of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, the results presented in this paper suggest that policies designed to increase women's education and to decrease out-of-wedlock births can substantially improve infant health in less-developed countries.

Based on data from the "Survey of Biological and Social Reproduction of the Uruguayan Population: an approach from the perspective of gender and generations" of 2004, we studied the impact of teenage motherhood on the educational outcomes of women. The results confirm the endogeneity of teenage motherhood on educational achievement. The partial effect of completing 9 years of formal education is between –10 and –16.5 pp, while that of completing 12 or more years is between –8 and –14.7 pp, depending on the estimation method used (probit, bivariate probit or propensity score), showing the overestimation of the naive probit models. The results of the bivariate probit models with endogeneity show that the probability of completing 9 years of formal education is 57% and that for 12 years or more is 24%. With regard to household characteristics, the biggest impact on the probability of completing any of the achievements specified corresponds to the education of the mother (19 pp basic achievement, 30 pp school achievement).