Lagged Effect of Childhood Mortality on Reproductive Behavior in Ghana and Kenya

This paper goes beyond the physiological impact of infant deaths on fertility by examining whether such deaths elicit an explicit, conscious and intentional fertility response in sub-Saharan Africa. The major research questions are: what are the long term implications of childhood mortality on reproductive behavior? Does the death of the first child, for instance, affect the risk of a higher order birth? These questions are examined using DHS data from Ghana and Kenya. At each parity, women with childhood mortality experience were found to have a higher number of subsequent than those without. Additionally, multivariate results suggest that infant deaths tend to have a long term impact on reproductive behaviour. The death of the first child in particular was found to associate with the risk of a higher order birth. This is probably because first births in most African cultures are deemed special and as such their death as infants has a long term effect on a woman’s reproductive behaviour. From a policy perspective, these finding suggest that improvement in child survival programs could significantly improve fertility through both the biological and behavioural effects.