Maternal education and child nutritional status: evidence from Uganda

Abstract

Purpose – The debate concerning the relationship between maternal education and child nutritional status is not a foregone conclusion. This paper aims to contribute to the existing debate by examining this relationship for the case of Uganda.|Design/methodology/approach – Theoretically, the study was based on household models of optimization, just like in the standard consumer theory, to gain insights into household demand for the health good. Empirically, the paper employed maximum-likelihood probit models and computed marginal effects in order to obtain logically interpretable results.|Findings – The paper finds that once the socio-economic factors are controlled for, the significance of maternal education, especially primary and secondary levels, in influencing child nutrition status decays but post-secondary education persists. Therefore, if mothers are exposed to the same socio-economic conditions, it is education of the mother beyond secondary level that generates a...