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Does Parental Education Protect Child Health? Some Evidence from Rural Udaipur

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Econophysics and Economics of Games, Social Choices and Quantitative Techniques

Part of the book series: New Economic Windows ((NEW))

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Abstract

The role of parental education in influencing child health outcomes has received much attention in the development literature. In this paper, I ask if parental education is protective of child health, as measured by seven different health outcomes, in a recent survey conducted in rural Udaipur. This study differs from most previous research in that it offers insight on the impact of parental education on the health of older children (aged 0–13) instead of infants alone and that it explores the relationship for multiple instead of only one or two diverse measures of child health. I show that the overall effect of parental education on child health is weak and that this finding could, in part, be driven by a failure of better parental health behaviors to lead to better child health outcomes, even though parental education is strongly associated with these better behaviors.

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Maitra, S. (2010). Does Parental Education Protect Child Health? Some Evidence from Rural Udaipur. In: Basu, B., Chakravarty, S.R., Chakrabarti, B.K., Gangopadhyay, K. (eds) Econophysics and Economics of Games, Social Choices and Quantitative Techniques. New Economic Windows. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-1501-2_23

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