Maternal education, women’s access to information and childhood development a case of lao PDR

The role of mother’s education and women access to information impact on early childhood development.. This paper examines the impact of maternal education and women’s access to informat

University of Economics Hochiminh City

_

CHANTHAVONG SOMSANOUK

“Maternal Education, Women’s Access to Information and Childhood

Development: A Case of Lao PDR”

MASTER DEGREE THESIS IN ECONOMICS

HOCHIMINH CITY, VIETNAM

University of Economics Hochiminh City

_

CHANTHAVONG SOMSANOUK

“Maternal Education, Women’s Access to Information and Childhood

Development: A Case of Lao PDR”

MAJOR: ECONOMICS OF DEVELOPMENT (Research-Oriented Programme)

CODE: 8310105

MASTER DEGREE IN ECONOMICS

ACADAMIC ADVISOR: VO TAT THANG

HOCHIMINH CITY, VIETNAM

I certify that, All contents of this dissertation have never been submitted for any other degree and has never been currently submitted for any other degree I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and helps from the advisor in preparing this dissertation and all sources used, have been acknowledged in this dissertation.”

Signature

CHANTHAVONG SOMSANOUK

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to express my highest appreciation for my thesis supervisor Dr Vo Tat Thang for his valuable suggestions and encouragements during

my study and doing research at the University of Economics Hochiminh City (UEH)

My highest gratitude also goes to all instructors, lecturers who provide me valuable knowledge especially Prof Dr Pham Khanh Nam who compliments and provides best viewpoints on my thesis proposal; my friends in class who are actively discussed and commented on my thesis

My research would not have been possible without the permission from UNDP’s survey data who formally provided data needed for the qualitative analysis part which are indeed valuable information that useful in this study

My best sincere appreciation also goes to the People’s committee of Hochiminh city who provide and grant aid as exchange scholarship, especially the Lao student Dormitory in Hochiminh City where provide facilities and the best living condition during my study I also would like to express my best gratitude to the Postgraduate Institute of University of Economics Hochiminh City that helps facilitate and providing guidelines during my study in UEH

Finally, my heartfelt gratitude goes to my parents, sibling, wife and the dearest three sons of mine for support, love and encouragement, this dissertation is dedicated to them

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iv

TABLE OF CONTENT v

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

List of abbreviations ix

Abstract x

Introduction 1

1.1 Research Problem 1

1.2 Some fact on Lao social, economic Status 2

1.2.1 Government policy on gender 2

1.2.2 Mechanism 4

1.2.3 Education policy toward women empowerment 6

1.2.4 Government policy on education 7

1.2.5 Literacy status of Lao people 7

1.3 Research objective and Research question 11

1.4 Scope of the Study 12

1.5 Contribution 12

1.6 Thesis structure 12

Chapter 1: Literature review 14

1.1 Theoretical background 14

1.2 Empirical review 18

1.2.1 The impact of maternal education on early childhood development 21

1.2.2 The role of mother’s education and women access to information impact on early childhood development 24

1.2.3 The effect of development economics on health 24

1.3 Summary 25

Chapter 2: Research Methodology and Data Resources 27

2.2 Analytical model and data processing: 31

2.2.1 Model 31

2.2.2 Estimation method 34

2.2.3 Variable definitions 34

2.3 Data: 40

2.3.1 LSIS I 40

2.3.2 LSIS II 43

Chapter 3 Empirical result 45

3.1 Data description 45

3.2 Emperial result 47

3.2.1 Maternal education and early childhood development 49

3.2.2 Women access to information and early childhood development 49

3.2.3 Regional Effect 49

3.2.4 Wealth Quintile Index 50

3.2.5 Ethnicity effect 50

3.2.6 Clean water using and toilet using 50

3.2.7 Household Member and number of children under 5 51

3.2.8 Age of mother 51

3.2.9 Child’s gender: 51

Chapter 4 Conclusion 52

4.1 Conclusions 52

4.2 Policy implications 53

4.3 Limitation of the study 53 REFERENCES I APPENDIX IV

Table1.1: Attendance of students by Education Level in 2014-2015

Table 1.2: Mean primary school enrollment rates (in %) for children aged 6-12

(2002-2003)

Table 2.1 Detail description of the variables

Table 3.1 Descriptive statistic of variables used in the regression model

Table 3.2 Logit estimation result

Table 3.3 Average Marginal Effect result

1 The diagrams for the determinants for early childhood development

2 The Development progress of children in different age ranges

CEDAW: The Convention of the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination CRC: Right of the Child

ECD: Early Childhood Development

Lao PDR: Lao People’s Democratic Republic

GRID: Gender Resource Information and Development Center

Lao NCAW: Lao National Commission for Advancement of Women

Maternal Education, Women’s Access to Information and Childhood Development:

A Case of Lao PDR

Chanthavong Somsanouk

The Lao People Democratic Republic (PDR), a transitional economy, and one of least developed economics in Southeast Asia region, After its opening the country and an economic pathway of its development following the semi-market economy system, the GDP of Laos during last decade growth with an average rate of 7%, which is a high rate compared to many countries in the region In the long run, to guarantee the sustainable growth and development of the country, to raise the productivity, the need for human resource becomes one of the main focuses in the 8th Social Economic Development Plan This paper examines the impact of maternal education and women’s access to information on probability of the outcomes of early childhood development as expectedly that the healthier children will eventually to provide higher labor productivity and guarantee the sustainable development of the country

By using the Logit regression model, the measurement of health status of children called Early Childhood Development (ECD) this fills the gaps and make it more diversity in research on the determinant of the child’s health

The result of the study shows that maternal education is confirmed to have a positive effect on children well being Children whose his or her mother has more years of school are more likely to be properly developed At the same time, Women access to information also found to have a positive effect with a satisfactory level of statistical significance for the likeliness that her children are properly developed

The suggestions on implication of the theoretical and the finding of the research are the scientifically advanced for the policy makers for setting up guidelines for sustainable development strategies, particularly in aspect of women and child empowerment through education and access to information

Key words: Maternal Education, Women’s access to Information, Early Childhood Development, Lao PDR.

Introduction 1.1 Research Problem

Early childhood development (ECD) plays an important role in development as the whole, a recent study in human development reveals that epigenetic, immunological, physiological and psychological adaptation to the environment is to be possessed from the very early stages of children and becomes the basis for the entire life course development (Young, 2002) Evidence on long-term outcomes in low income and middle income countries allowed the conclusion that the increase cognitive development of children 25 years ago has significantly resulted in 25% more than those that was not joining the early child educational programs (Glewwe, 2005)

ECD widely accepted as the foundation of sustainable development in developing countries After the publication of The Lancet, the landmark series, child’s development

in developing countries in 2007 and child development in developing countries II in

2011, the number of scientific publications on a core topic of Early Childhood Development has substantially increased There also has been increasing in numbers of funding programs for early childhood development as recent research in early human development affect overall development throughout the life course (Britto et al., 2017)

Early childhood development is gradually improved throughout the past decades because of the help and support from many development agencies Together with the efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which UNDP has declared since

1990, so that there has been a great improvement in child survival while mortality of child under five is dramatically dropped

Many pieces of study have found a significant relation between Mother’s Education and child development in many aspects Barrera (1990b), for example, has found that maternal education level has a positive correlation with health and nutritional status of the child Hill and King (1995) has also explained the relationship between educational level of mother and child’s well-being as the increase of mother’s education results in

having less number children’s in a family, consequently, this allows family to invest more on their children

1.2 Some fact on Lao social, economic Status

Located in the center of South East Asian, Lao PDR is surrounded by 5 neighbor countries, China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Thailand As of 2015 its population is approximately 6 million, increased from 5 million in 2005 With Its total area is 236,800 square kilometers, this makes the population density of Laos is still low

1.2.1 Government policy on gender

The Lao first constitution adopted in 1991, has stated guarantee of equality of genders

in politics, economy, culture and society, as well as they are concretely stated in family law National Assembly has revised and promulgate the family law in the year 2003, stated that “ the state, society and family should attentively implement the policy on the development and promotion of women’s advancement, protecting women’s and children’s rights and benefits” this show that the importance of women and children is among the concerns of the Lao government The said law also states that “Lao citizens have the freedom of settlement and movement as provided by law, women of all ethnic groups should receive equal treatment in terms of legal rights, economic and social opportunities

Apart from stating on the constitution and the law, there are many other laws and legal documents which reflected the principle of equality between men and women, Labor law 1994 for example, which requires nondiscrimination in employment, equal salary pay for both genders not only quantify but quality and value Female workers have her right to be off of work at least ninety-days of the maternity period with normal pay from their employers or from the social security fund And at least thirty more days could be allowed as supplementary in case of illness resulting from pregnancy

On October 2004, the National Assembly passed the Law on Development and Protection of Women Subsequently, the President of the Lao PDR issued a decree which officially announce a publicly this legal instrument that enforced to ensure and uplift women’s role; to define basic provisions, meaures for the protection of the

legitimate interests of women as well as the responsibility of the state, society and family vis-à-vis women; it also aims to promote their knowledge and competency, revolutionary morals and virtues, gender equality; to eliminate all forms of discri-mination against women; to proven and fight against trafficking in women and children;

to combat domestic violence against women and children; to creat enabling conditions for women’s participation; and to be equal force in national protection and development The law also indicated the responsibility of the state, society and family towards women

is to encourage knowledge, capacity and gender quality

Not only from law and regulation and other legal documents in country level, Laos is also a signatory to a number of international conventions, which the country is committed to implementing It joins the convention on the Political Right of Women in

1969, and ratifies the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW) and the convention on the Right of Child (CRC) in 1981 and

1990, respectively CEDAW prohibits women’s discrimination and protects their rights and CRC obligates government to protect the rights of children-girls and boys – and to ensure that their basic need are met Safe motherhood is also part of the CRC The government’s commitment to gender equality is also expressed in policy document, including those on population, health and human resources

Lao PDR has incorporated the main ideas of these conventions in its constitution However, there still remains the needed to develop laws to steadily strengthen the Lao legal framework, which suffers from a shortage of experience and human capacity, and limited awareness among the population The ministry of Justice is making efforts to raise awareness about the plight of women and their rights It is planed to include gender training/sessions in legal education (the curriculum for law students) at the Faculty of Law and Political Science, National Univercity of Laos Gender training will also be provided to crime investigators and judges of the supremecourt, and raise awareness of people’s human rights, especially women, ethnic minorities, children and other disadvantaged people

1.2.2 Mechanism

To improve the women’s status and gender equality, the Lao government assigned the Lao Women’s Union and Lao National Commission for Advancement of Women (NCAW) as machineries to implement their functions

The Lao Women’s Union is a mass organization authorized under article 7 of the 1991 constitution to mobilize and protect the rights and benefits of all Lao women and children It was established in 1995 under the name of the Lao Patriotic Women’s Association, initially acted as a uniting front for all Lao women of all ethnic groups and all social strata in the struggle for the liberation of the country

After the liberation and the proclamation of the Lao PDR on December 2, 1975, the organization changed its name to the Lao Women’s Union (LWU) and expanded its role and mandate to conform the socioeconomic development of the new era With status same as the ministerial level, It has the organization structure from the central level to the grassroots level The IV National Lao Women’s Congress approved the Lao Women’s Slogan: “Three goods” meaning: “being a good citizen, being good in development, having a good cultural family”

The roles of the LWU are: to educate women of all ethnic groups as stated in the constitution, laws, legislations and international conventions related to the right and benefits of women and children; to protect the right and benefits of Lao women and children; to mobilize and advance women to actively participate in the social-economic development; to take part in protecting of fine culture and traditions of Lao women of all ethnic groups

The Lao Women’s Union is the national mechanism for the promotion of equal rights and the advancement of women The Union has the responsibility for overseeing directly or indirectly the implementation of all government policies and programs related to women’s development and gender issues

Over the past 30 years, the Lao Women’s Union expanded its activities to support skill training, income generation, and financial assistance for ethnic minority and rural women; good health practices and family planing; awareness-raising about women’s

rights, including in the workplace and in relation to land registration and titling; the establishment of women’s professional associations; and women’s advancement in the civil service and the National Assembly More recently, the LWU started to address emerging issues such as domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, and human trafficking; however, political mobilization of Lao women remains a core mandate of the LWU

Since 1997 the LWU has been playing a prominent role in advocating for gender equality and women’s empowerment through the Gender Resource Information and Development Center (GRID), through creating gender awareness, and providing gender analysis for Government official at all levels to facilitate gender main-streaming As a technical body some of GRID’s accomplishment include: coordi-nation with the National Statistic Center to collect and promote the use of statistics disaggregated by sex; colaboration with CPI to develop guidelines and to conduct training on gender sensitive planing; gender awareness and skill training for government staff at central and local levels and mess media; quantitative and qualitative research on the situation

of Lao women, women’s participation in village decision making, gender and land, gender and energy, women entreprenuers, and other topics; consultation with CPI and line ministries on intergrating gender in the NGPES; preparation of a country gender analysis and profile; creation of website and production of newsletters, information sheets and brochures, poster, calendars and videos

In the beginning of 2002, the Lao government agreed to establish Lao NCAW as the mechanism institution to promote gender equality and Women’s Advancement by gaining experience from Vietnam and Philippines to study their respective national machineries for women Therefore, in April 2003 the PM issued the Decree No.37 to establish the Lao NCAW officially The Lao NCAW is different from LWU that the Lao NCAW is a state organization, but both are committed to protecting the rights and interests of Lao women and to bring about gender quality in all aspects of life in the Lao society, across various ethnic groups The Lao NCAW functions as the focal point coordinating closely with local authorities and international organizations in the implementation of the government’s policy on gender equality and the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women To enable the Lao NCAW to carry out the

said activity in an effective manner, the Prime Minister of Lao NCAW to carry out the said activity in an effective manner, the Prime Minister of Lao PDR issued the orders organizations, line ministries and local authorities to set up a unit for the advancement

of women within their respective organizations These will be called sub-Commissions

on the Advancement of Women with the responsibility of coordinating the implementation of national laws, policies and plans for the advancement of women by their respective organizations

The National Stategy for the Advancement of Women for the year 2005-2010 that are

in conformity with the Beijin Platform for Action which focus on five main goals: (1) Enhance women’s participation in the implementation of the NGPES for the entire population and women themselves; (2) promote the education of women; (3) Improve women’s access to healthcare services; (4) Increase the number of women in decision making positions at all levels; (5) Strengthening those organizations that protect and promote the advancement of women

Althought the Lao women have obtained several achievements from implementing different activities, but it still faces some difficulties and challenging that slow down the process of their advancement such as : the lack of human capacity to effectively carry out gender mainstreaming within programs and through training exercises for minstry staff; the lack of accurate sex-disaggregated and relevant gender data to support policy-making; limited budget and resources to support the gender mainstreaming process; and the coordination of gender mainstreaming activities among government ministries, international donors and INGOs still limited

1.2.3 Education policy toward women empowerment

Although Lao PDR has made quantitative and qualitative progress in education over the past several decades, education indicators remain among the lowest in East Asia There are stark disparities between urban and rural areas, boys and girl, rich and poor Within urban areas, the gender gap in education has practically closed Meanwhile, rural area recorded some of the lowest educational indicators in the country, and the gender gap continues to widen Indeed, a significant proportion of children, especially girls and

ethic minority groups in remote areas are out of school There are more illiterate women than men

Causes of illiteracy and low attendance among girls and women vary across provinces and among the different ethnic groups Poverty traditional beliefs, some preference languages, and remoteness are important factors Others could be dropping out of school either due to household chores, early marriage or pregnancy Many poor families do not see the relevance of formal education for improving their livelihoods, and the lack of interest by parents discourages children from attending school

1.2.4 Government policy on education

The Lao Constitution and Education law recognize the right of all citizens to education They promote the principle of compulsory primary education and the development of education with particular attention to ethnic minority groups, women in the greatest poverty, and both disable and especially talented children The most significant document is the Strategic Plan 20 years to 2020, and the five year development Plan for Education Government wide policies have also impacted on education: in particular, the Prime Minister Decree on implementing Decentralization of Educaton Sector, the five year-social-economic Plan and the National Poverty Reduction Plan

The Lao Government has also ratified international agreement on and related to education, for instance, CEDAW, CRC, and has agreed to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) More specifically, it has committed to Education for All” (EFA) Under this, the aim is for the overall net enrollment rate (NER) of 95% for Primary education by 2015, and lower secondary school NER to be 74% In 2004, the share of education expenditure in public expenditure is 11,8% of GDP The MOE is actually implementing a seven year basic education for girls project ($55 Million US) and School feeding in primary school in remote areas that help poor children / girls, ethnic minority groups better access to schooling in particular

1.2.5 Literacy status of Lao people

About 40% of the Lao population lives below the poverty line and poverty is a major determinant of who goes to primary school for how long and with what results Overall

adult illiteracy in Lao PDR is about 34 percent, with the rate being higher for women 45% than men 23% (Bank, 2002)

The gender gap is still pronounced, particularly among rural households, poor households and ethnic minorities Important gains were mare in urban areas in the last who decades, with the gap between literate men and women quickly closing These absolute gains have been largest for the poor, in particular poor urban females whose progress in the last few years exceeded that of boys (King and Van de Walle 2005)

Gender disparities in literacy are higher in the highland areas where a large number of ethnic minorities live At 29%, the literacy rate for poor rural no Lao-Tai women is the lowest of all standing in sharp contrast to 66% for poor rural Lao-Tai women (World Bank 2006) Indicators vary even among the various ethno-linguistic groups, with only 20% of Chine-Tibet women reporting they can read and write a figure that is lower than the 29% quoted for the overall rural poor non Lao-Tai female population

The major gender issues in education is that as the level of education increases the gap widens between the participation of boys and girls in school, especially at university level Although the Ministry of Eduation has been making efforts to close the gap, the disparities still exist and have to be overcome

Table1.1: Attendance of students by Education Level in 2014-2015

Preschool Primary

School

Lower Secondary

Upper Secondary

University

Total 45,328 831,004 243,137 144,906 39,921

Sources: MOE, August 2015

Primary enrollment rates in Lao are among the lowest in East Asia, with the lowest rates being among ethnic minority girls living in rural areas (UNESCO 2003) Eighty percent

of villages have a primary school located in that area, out of which only 36% have complete primary schools (all 5 grades) (National Census 2015) The situation in the

North region is of particular concern nationwide, 90 percent of schools in the poorest districts are incomplete, and more than 40% of students attend an incomplete school

The net intake has doubled during the last five years in the 46 poorest districts However, in those districts with high concentrations of ethnic minorities, three of five children attend school at some period, but only half of these complete a basic education The vast majority of ethnic minority children never make it past second grade

In rural areas, more than 40% of all girls and 30% of all boys will have dropped out before the end of the fifth year For non Lao-Tai students in rural areas, nearly 50% of them drop out at the end of primary school (King and Van de Walle, 2005)

The lowest rates of primary school enrollment are among non-Lao-Tai girls living in rural areas while the highest are among Lao-Tai men from urban areas However, there are notable differences among the various groups For instance, among the Hmong-Lu Mien, 48% of rural girls are enrolled in primary school compared to 66% of boys As for the Mong-Khmer, 57% and 61% of rural girls and boys are attending primary school While the gender gap is smaller among men and women from the Chine-Tibet ethnic group, only 33% of girls and 39% of boy living in rural areas are enrolled in primary school For all three non Lao-Tai groups, the gender gap in primary enrollment is lower

in urban than in rural areas

Table 1.2: Mean primary school enrollment rates (in %) for children aged 6-12 2013)

Hmong-lu Mien 87.8 84.5 66.0 48.3

Source: King and Van de Walle 2015 based on LECS3

Progression from the primary to the secondary cycle is difficult About 35% of students enroll in secondary education, but only about 5 percent complete the full six years and less than 5 percent of children continue on to university level

Nationally, female enrollment in lower secondary has remained low The numbers indicate a secondary net enrollment rate for the 11-16 age group of 38 percent for males and 32 percent for females), a drop of 48% and 42% respectively While overall net lower secondary enrollment for urban students was 48% for, net enrollment for rural children was only 25%

To address the issue of illiteracy and the existing gender disparities in education sector, government of Lao has the strategic plan as follows:

Universalization of the quality of basic education at the primary level and continued expansion of participation at lower secondary level, ensuring that all people have the opportunity to apply their education to serve the social economic programs;

Eradication of illiteracy, thus providing poor people with a means of helping to improve their quality of life;

Expansion of vocational, technical and higher education to meet the demands of the new labor market and to improve economic rates of return on human capital investment;

The training of skilled workers, technicians, professionals, and intellectual to have the capacity to apply modern science and technology to serve development needs; and

Gradually upgrade the quality of national education to the international standard

In Laos, Public policy and its practice are likely mismatched, public investment mainly focus on urban infrastructure and business subsidies which believed to help boost the

economic growth Expenses on health cafe found to be dropped during 2014-2016, from

3 to 2,4% of GDP, while health care for children are mainly in the responsibility of the ministry of health this might be the causes lead to the fluctuation in mother and child health status in Laos

According to LSIS 2012, and 2017 ECD index of Laos had reached respectively 81,3%; 89,1% However, ECD in the Northern part of Laos has been considered far poorer than middle and southern parts A survey conducted by the World Bank out of 7.520 children from 5 Northern provinces, reveals that only 25% of children attended some form of early childhood education, 22% received some form of health services, 50% are stunted

Due to less number of scientific studies on this topic available and has been done, the public acceptance of the importance of ECD has been known only in limited sectors,

in Laos, as a result, it’s vital for this study to investigate and scientifically prove the relationship between maternal education level and early childhood development, this seemingly envision for policy maker to pay much attention on investing in human capital for long run social economic development Also This expected result of the study also aims to add to the literature and promoting sustainable development in Laos through the important role of educational and health and information sectors

1.3 Research objective and Research question

This desertion is mainly to examine the relationship between maternal education level and early childhood development as a holistic view of child health status in Laos during 2000-2016 By controlling other variables such as the family wealth quintile, and some other’s characters of mother the main objective and consideration of the dissertation are

as below:

First, does maternal education influence the early childhood development in Lao PDR?

Second, how does the access to information of women affect the development

of children in Laos?

And finally, are there any big differences in terms of ECD among different regions of Laos?

1.4 Scope of the Study

This thesis analyses and calculates the interaction among level of education of mothers and early childhood development

1.5 Contribution

To accomplish the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and sustainability development in Laos, it is important to recognize the importance of early childhood development It’s supposed that only if the determinant of the development is confirmed, the policy making can be targeted on the right determinant scientifically The finding of this research may provide scientific evidence for policy makers to recognize the role of Child development, maternal education and women access to information

1.6 Thesis structure

This thesis is organized into 5 chapters, above section is first chapter, and sections hereafter are:

Chapter 1: Literature review

This chapter focuses mainly on literature review and empirical studies concerning the relationship between mother’s education and early childhood development This chapter discusses the results of the previous studies and compares the factors which may

be related to one another, such as whether the difference between father’s education and mother’s education, between adopted children and own birth children, or other socioeconomic dimensions such as ethnicity, geographical location, gender and wealth

of family or a wide variety of social and economic circumstances, behaviors matter and

other related factors Finally, it also provides the conceptual framework upon the previous studies

Chapter 2: Research methodology This chapter presents the research methodology,

data source and regression technique And finally, mentions the hypotheses for the thesis

Chapter 3: Empirical results This chapter presents the statistic descriptions of the data

as well as bivariate and multivariate analysis Along with the discussion and provision

of evidence from the regression results on the finding in association with maternal education, women access to information and early childhood development

Chapter 4: Conclusion This chapter concludes the main findings of the empirical study

results, provides discussion on the limitations and suggestion for future research and study related to the topic

Chapter 1:

Literature review 1.1 Theoretical background

Early childhood development is a multi-dimensional concept, as a result, conceptual model for it are diverse in response to different fields of study Based on different theories early childhood development can be explained by psycho-analytical, behavioral and social learning theories, Biological Theories, cognitive development, system theory Each of these theories helps researchers to identify the determinant and understand the relation between among social-economic factors that affect the development of a child

Early childhood development in psychoanalytical, base on 2 markable theories Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson, the former stressed that the child’s personality formation is influenced by parents’s management of their sexual and aggressive drives, the latter which extends the Freud’s in which Societal influences had been included to explain the personality formation In Behavioral and Social Learning theories, study the relationship between the environment and nurturing and the growth of a child

In literature factors affect child development or child health status are explained by different indicators and various methods of measurment (Glewwe, 1999) has explained the determinant of child’s health is influenced by parental schooling, household assets, local health evironment and child’s health endowment

According to ecological systems theory, child’s development study within the context

of the system of relationships that form his or her environment, Bronfenbrenner’s theory defines complex “layers” of the environment, each having an effect on a child’s development This theory has recently been renamed “Bioecological systems theory” to emphasize that a child’s own biology is a primary environment fueling their development The interaction between factors in the child’s maturing biology, their immediate family or community environment, and the societal landscape fuels and steers its development Changes or conflict in any one layer will ripple throughout other

layers To study a child’s development, we must look not only at the child and her immediate environment, but also on the interaction of the larger environment as well

First, the microsystem, the closest structure and has direct contact to the child health status The microsystem encompasses the relationships and interactions a child development status with his or her immediate surroundings (Berk, 2000) Structures in the microsystem include family, school, neighborhood, or childcare environments At this level, relationships have an impact in two directions - both away from the child and toward the child For example, a child’s parents may affect his beliefs and behavior; however, the child also affects the behavior and beliefs of the parent Bronfenbrenner calls these bi-directional influences, and he shows how they occur among all levels of its environment The interaction of structures within a layer and interactions of structures between layers is the key to this theory At the microsystem level, bi-directional influences are strongest and have the greatest impact on the child However, interactions at outer levels can still impact the inner structures

Second, the mesosystem is the layer provides the connection between the structures of the child’s microsystem (Berk, 2000) Examples: the connection between the child’s teacher and his parents, between his church and his neighborhood, etc

Third, the exosystem is the layer defined the larger social system in which the child does not function directly The structures in this layer impact the child’s development

by interacting with some structure in her microsystem (Berk, 2000) Parent workplace schedules or community-based family resources are examples The child may not be directly involved at this level, but he does feel the positive or negative force involved with the interaction with his own system

After that, the macrosystem is layer may be considered the outermost layer in the child’s environment While not being a specific framework, this layer is comprised of cultural values, customs, and laws (Berk, 2000) The effects of larger principles defined by the macrosystem have a cascading influence throughout the interactions of all other layers For example, if it is the belief of the culture that parents should be solely responsible for raising their children, that culture is less likely to provide resources to help parents

This, in turn, affects the structures in which the parents function The parents’ ability or inability to carry out that responsibility toward their child within the context of the child’s microsystem is likewise affected

Finally, the chronosystem which is a system encompasses the dimension of time as it relates to a child’s environments Elements within this system can be either external, such as the timing of a parent’s death, or internal, such as the physiological changes that occur with the aging of a child As children get older, they may react differently to environmental changes and may be more able to determine more how that change will influence them

From Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological theory, these factors include maternal education (microsystem level), maternal and family involvement in children’s home activities (macrosystem level), maternal and family involvement in children’s school activities (mesosystem level), and the social support (exosystem level)

Also, the ecological theory views child outcomes as dependent upon the characteristics

of the child, parent, family, school, community, and larger society, as well as the interactions among these variables However, some researchers have argued that this traditional ecological framework is limited because it does not adequately consider variables such as social position (e.g., social class, ethnicity, race, and gender), social stratification (e.g Racism, prejudice, discrimination, and segregation), and adaptive culture (e.g., traditions and cultural legacies, migration and acculturation, economic and political histories) experienced by family members of color who are born in the United States or other countries To address this problem, Coll et al (1996) proposed an integrative model to study the development of competence in children of color, by considering both social position and social stratification constructs at the core rather than at the periphery of a theoretical formulation of children’s development In this model, the researchers address some important factors omitted or neglected in mainstream ecological models, such as experiences of racism and segregation, intragroup variability and diversity within minority group families, and the effects of social stratification and acculturation on the developmental competencies of minority group children

Children inhabit both families and childcare microsystems, and these systems are linked Parents select particular types of child care, of varying quality, for children of different ages and these decisions vary with family structure, parental characteristics, geographical location, and other factors Singer et al (1998) argued that childcare researchers must consider these selection effects if they are to accurately model the impact of child care on children’s development over time In the research, the authors refer to the effects of family-level and community-level factors on child-care

In this study, the main hypothesis is that maternal education may affect children's health,

at least in the following two ways First, women with more years of education have higher production and allocation efficiencies in their children’s health production (Grossman, 2006) Production efficiency means better health condition with given health production input, while allocation efficiency means optimal combination of different health inputs with the given budget Maternal education can raise both production and allocation efficiencies, and thus improve children’s health Second, higher maternal education can also affect the amount of inputs of children’s health production More educated women have higher labor market income (labor market effect) and “match” with better educated and higher income husbands (assortative mating effect), while more family resources and better family environment contribute

to children’s health human capital accumulation (McCrary and Royer, 2011)

In recent literature, most studies mainly measure health of children by their weight, body mass index, height which only represent the wellbeing in term of physical health that supposed to be the well being such as the studies by (Shanks, 2007, Desai and Alva, 1998, Thomas et al., 1991b, Barrera, 1990a, Barrera, 1990b) which independent variable (mother’s education) is measure according the years of attending school included the study by (Britto et al., 2017, Duncan and Dunifon, 2012, Aslam and Kingdon, 2012, Cutler and Lleras-Muney, 2006, Frost et al., 2005, Glewwe, 1999, Desai and Alva, 1998, Barrera, 1990b, Ware, 1984) while measure the early childhood development in accordance the ECD index adopted by the UNDP standardized measurement is used in this study

1.2 Empirical review

Many recent studies have examined the impact of the mother’s (and father) education

on child health For comprehensive reviews of the literature, (Strauss and Thomas, 1995) The discussion in this thesis, however, is limited to an overview of a few recent studies, focusing on the impact of mother’s education on early childhood development which are the holistic view of health status of children

Studies of the determinants of child height and weight in many countries have found positive effects of mother’s education Most of these studies presented reduced form estimates, but a few went further, examining the pathways by which mother’s education improves child health In the Philippines, Barrera (1990b) found that better educated mothers tended to wean their children sooner, but they compensated for this shortened breastfeeding time with better care; overall, their children were healthier as measured

by higher height-for-age z-scored The only published study that focuses on the

“information processing” attributes of schooling is by Thomas et al (1991a), which used Braillian data that included variables for whether a woman reads a newspaper, listens to the radio, or watches television Mother’s schooling was not significant when dummy variables were included for these “information processing” activities: the newspaper and radio variables were significant in rural areas but only the television variable was significant in urban areas

Among the most interesting studies are those based on the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey Several studies have used these data to model the pathways by which exogenous variables influence child nutritional status and morbidity, The Cebu Study Team (1991, 1992) found that mother’s education leads to improved waste disposal and higher non-breastmilk calorie intake, both of which reduce the incidence

of diarrhea Maternal education also leads to earlier weaning, which can increase episodes of diarrhea, but the net effect of maternal education is to reduce the incidence

of diarrhea

An important critique of finding that mother’s education improves child health is the hyphothesis that education simply reflects unobserved maternal characteristics (Behrman and Wolfe, 1987) used Nicaraguan data on mother’s sibling to control for

unobserved family fixed effects They found that applying these controls leaves no significant effect of mother’s education on child anthropometric status However, Strauss and Mundial (1988) found in rural Cote D’Ivoire that the mother’s education raises child health, as he found the positive effecct on child’s height for age and weight for height, even after using family fixed effects estimators

In Vietnam, Thu (2014) studied the impact of mother’s education on child’s health, found that education factor affect child health while the use of toilet are not significanlty affect health status of vietnames children Other thesis by Cam (2018) Not only that maternal education strength affects children’s health, and household wealth but other factors such as gender and living area slightly impact on child health The study is claimed to be the first research to estimate the influence of maternal education

on child health by quantile regression while the historical papers used OLS or fixed effect to research those influences Quantile regression is employed to analyze the impacts of mothers’ education on child health under different quantiles of the child’s body index variable

Besides, Dr Vo (2018) study the relationship between women’s empowerment and children development in rural Vietnam, found that women’s empowerment has significant impact on child’s development (Thomas et al., 1991b) has carried out the study on how mother’s education affects child’s height and has found that there’s a positive effect of mother’s education on the child’s height with a highly statistically significant level (Schultz, 1984) examines the impact of household Economic and Community Variables on Child Mortality has suggested that there are five ways in which education level of mother might influences child’s health: first, Education leads

to more efficient mix of health goods that improve child’s health; Second, mother who are more educated may be more effective at producing child’s health for a given amount and mix of health goods; Third, Schooling affect preferences of mother in systematic ways; fourth, more schooling year always means more incomes, higher wage or increase productivity incase self-employment this results to improve child health status, finally, Education raises the opportunity cost of time, increases mother’s time to take care of her children

Maitra et al (2006) exammines the effect of parental, household and community characteristics on the health of children in China, of particular importance in their analysis is parental education and unobserved mother level heterogeneity (that affect all children born to the same mother) They found that parental education generally has a strong effect on child health and mother’s educational attainment generally has a stronger effect on child health compared to father’s educational attainment This supports in general argument that as maternal educational level higher the child’s better health condition better, by increasing the set of information that is available to the mother (and more generally to the household) and that there is an income effect that is associated with increased father’s educational attainment; they also found out the significance of discrimination against girls help improve the child’s health status

The research on child’s stant status in Laos, done by Yusuke Kamiya, Marika Nomura, Hina Ogino, Kanako Yoshikawa, Latsamy Siengsounthone and Phonepadith Xangsayarath, has clarified associated dimensions of women’s autonomy to childhood stunting A closer examination of mother’s autonomy will aid the proper understanding

of the determinants of childhood stunting The team conducted a cross sectional questionnaires and body scale measurement, targeting 100 mothers and their 115 children (under five) from semi-urban communities in Lao PDR, which is the country with the highest prevalence of childhood stunting in the Indochina region As dimensions of women’s autonomy, the team had measured self-esteem, self-efficacy, decision-making power, freedom of mobility and control of money, then analyze how each dimensional factor was associated with the likelihood of childhood stuttering They found out that the likelihood of childhood stunting was significantly lower if mother had higher self-efficacy of healthcare, self-esteem and control of many also found to be a negative relation to the stunting level In contrast mother’s decision-making power and freedom of mobility were not significantly associated with childhood stunting

In summary, from the entire reviews, there is considerable evidence that mother’s education improves child health and some evidence on how this occurs Still, there are

no studies the effect of mother’s characteristics affects child health from the whole perspective which measures of the status of early childhood development

1.2.1 The impact of maternal education on early childhood development

The relation between mother’s education and child health has long been supported by many evidences Barrera (1990a) researched the impact of mother’s education on child health in which the indicator for good or bad child health is determined by height for age scores The regression result shows a positive effect of maternal education on child nutritional outcomes Also, mother’s education improves children’s height for age

Similarly, the effect of maternal education on three markers of child health is examined

in 22 developing countries (Desai and Alva, 1998) The markers of child health consist

of the probability of infant death, children’s height for age, and immunization status The ranking of educational level of mother includes 2 levels, mother not educated and mother with secondary educational level The result indicates that there is a casual relation between mother’s education and infant mortality Meanwhile, the correlation between maternal education and children’s height for age is positive and significant Although the coefficient correlation of mother’s education on immunization status is small, this effect is statistically significant in sample countries

Moreover, the effect of mother’s schooling on child health is can also be seen in the case of Morocco (Glewwe, 1999) The study also suggests that there is a positive relationship between educational level and child health condition However, in this case, the evidences indicated that it is not only education, but also the effect of household wealth that leave an impact on child health

The association of maternal education with child health status may arise because more educated mothers can be considered as more efficient “producers” of good child health outcome (“productive efficiency”) by adopting better childcare practices or superior hygiene standards Alternatively, it could be because they choose health input mixes that generate more health output (“callocative efficiency”) than selected by less-educated mother (Thu, 2014)

Another studies used natural experiments to identify mother’s education-child health relationship In Indonasia Breierova and Duflo (2004) investigated the impact of parents’ education on fertility and child mortality He found a positive and significant effect of the school program on parents’ education and a negative effect on fertility Both father’s and mother’s education were found to reduce child mortality while a study in Taiwan, Chou et al (2010) found evidence of a causal relationship between parents’ education and child health, but contrary to the previous study, mother’s education was found to be stronger effect than father’s education However, non of concerned studies reveals the pathway for investigation

Besides, many studies have found a significant effect of maternal education on child health status while some argue that there is only few or even no evidence of a causal relationship among them For example, Frongillo Jr et al (1997) ran cross-country OLS regressions of child height-for-age (stunting) and weight-for-height (wasting) on education variables, food security, geographic region and other variables They found that the female literacy rate had a significantly negative effect on stunting However, this study failed to address the heterogeneity in child health endowment and did not use instrumental variables methods to address the endogeneity of female literacy rate In addition to this, Martorell et al (1984) found that there is no evidence of an impact of parents’ education on child health outcomes Baya (1998), used data from a town in Burkina Faso, he found that after controlling for father’s education, the effect of mother’s education on child survival loses its significance For this he concluded that studies on parents’ education and child health status should should be done on both mother and father educational level

Handa (1999) studied the relationship between mother’s education might and child health outcomes by examining six pathways through included income effects, interactions with household characteristics, interactions with community services, information processing, unobserved household heterogeneity, and intra-household bargaining power Using data from Jamaica, He found that information processing is a pathway through by which mother’s education affects child health outcomes

Webb and Block (2004), use household survey data from Central Java, Indonesia, found that a mother’s nutritional knowledge is a determinant of child short-term nutritional status (weight-for-height) whereas her schooling is a determinant of long-term nutritional status (height-for-age) These authors could not find plausible instrumental variables for maternal nutritional knowledge and household expenditure, so they used proxy variables to estimate reduced form equations for child nutritional status Webb and Block did not account for the possibility of omitted variable bias that would result from the heterogeneity of child health endowment Appoh and Krekling (2005) used data from the Volta Region in Ghana, found that mother’s nutritional knowledge is more important than mother’s schooling in determining child weight-for-age However, these authors accounted neither for the simultaneity of input choices, nor the endogeneity of mother’s health knowledge

After all, recent research on the relationship between maternal schooling and child health has moved towards underpinning the “pathways” in which mother’s education translates into the improvement in child health While a majority of the evidence has not directly controlled for the endogeneity of maternal schooling, introducing different

“pathways” is one way of isolating the “true” impact of maternal education from the effect of confounding factors In a recent study, (Glewwe, 1999) identifies three channels: 1) direct acquisition of basic health knowledge in school, 2) literacy and numeracy skills learned in school and 3) exposure to modern society The study found that mother’s health knowledge alone impacts child health outcomes

According to (Boyle et al., 2006), the linkages between maternal education and child health is cross-national difference; child health risks are reduced at higher levels of household wealth despite the unbalanced relationship between child health and levels

of education with the pattern of household wealth However, this research has some limitations, including the model is distributed with some unnecessary variables for improving on policies in population health; the limited regression for variation

1.2.2 The role of mother’s education and women access to information impact on early childhood development

Maternal education itself may not be the most and only factors explained the child health outcome, in literature, the access to information of women is also believed to be other important factors allow the better outcome for children, here are some pronounce studies that reveal the relationship between women access to information and child health outcome

There shall be many different factors that affect child health functions at the differnt level of educational of parents, household welfare and place where child born In Brazil, for excample, Thomas et al (1990) analyzed the role of income, mother’s literacy and information processing, and the interaction of maternal schooling with community services The authors find that for most of the time all the impact of maternal schooling

on child height can be explained through mother’s access to information, for example exposure to media

1.2.3 The effect of development economics on health

Michael H Boyle, al have done the study on the influence of economic development level, household wealth and maternal education on child health in the developing world, estimating the relative importance to child health outcome (indicated by weight and height for age) of economic development level (gross domestic product (GDP) converted to international dollars using purchasing power parity (ppp) rates: GDP-PPP), household wealth and maternal education and examines the modifying influence of national context on these estimates It used information collected from mothers aged from 15-49 years old participating in Demographic Health Survey DHS conduced in 42 developing countries

In multilevel regression models, the three study variables exhibited strong, independent associations with child health: GDP-PPP accounted for the large amount of unique variation, followed by maternal education and household wealth There was also substantial overlap (shared variance) between maternal education and the other two study variables The regressions of child health on household wealth and maternal education exhibited substantial cross-national variation in both strength and form of