Abstract
Teenage pregnancy is basically associated with higher rates of adverse health consequences like morbidity and mortality of both teen pregnant and newly born babies, and thus has important implications for human resources and development prospects of a country. This paper tries to enlighten on the incidence of teenage pregnancy and its variations across states and Union Territories (UTs) of India. In addition, it also seeks to examine whether teenage pregnancy has any adverse impact on health status of children. Based on data from National Family Health Survey 3 (NFHS 3), analysis reveals that incidence of teenage pregnancy varies across place of residence, religion, caste, region etc. To find out the impact of teenage pregnancy on child health a multiple regression model has been estimated where the dependent variable child ill health index has been considered as a proxy for child health. The analysis reveals that teenage pregnancy is associated with poor child health status. Moreover, maternal care during pregnancy has been found to be positively associated with child health status.
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Notes
- 1.
Similar approach has been used by Antony & Rao, (2007).
- 2.
Women literacy is defined as the percentage of women with 12 or more years of schooling.
- 3.
Maternal care index has been constructed by using the following methodology. First a dimension index has been constricted for each indicator by using following formula. DI = (Actual value − Minimum value)/(Maximum value − Minimum value). Then maternal care index has been obtained by taking average of the three dimension index.
- 4.
D 1Â =Â 1 for Central region, 0 otherwise, D 2Â =Â 1 for Eastern region, 0 otherwise, D 3Â =Â 1 for Northeastern region, 0 otherwise, D 4Â =Â 1 for Western region, 0 otherwise, D5Â =Â 1 for Southern region, 0 otherwise.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Definition of variables and data sources
Variable name | Definition |
|---|---|
Child Ill health index (CIHI) | Composite child health index of child mortality rate, weight at the time of birth (less than 2.5Â kg), size at the time of birth (very small), children under 5 with acute respiratory infection |
Teenage pregnancy (TP) | Here teenagers refer to women in the age group of 15–19 as data on pregnant women of age below 15 were not available |
Maternal care index (MCI) | Composite index of Percentage who received all recommended antenatal care refers to first check-up within the first trimester of pregnancy, who received two or more tetanus toxoid injections, and took iron and folic acid tablets or syrup for three or more months |
Full vaccination coverage (VACFUL) | Percentage of children age 12–23 months who received specific vaccines at any time before the survey (according to a vaccination card or the mother’s report), and percentage with a vaccination card seen by the interviewer, by state, India, 2005–06 |
Women literacy rate (WLR) | Percentage of respondents completed 12 or more years of education |
Appendix 2
Mean values and standard deviations of variables
Variable | Mean | Standard Deviation |
Child Ill health index (CIHI) | 0.491 | 0.322 |
Teenage pregnancy (TP) | 12.45 | 6.57 |
Maternal care index (MCI) | 0.36 | 0.25 |
Women literacy rate (WLR) | 14.31 | 7.41 |
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Roy, D., Debnath, A. (2018). On the Determinants of Child Health in India: Does Teenage Pregnancy Matter?. In: De, U., Pal, M., Bharati, P. (eds) Issues on Health and Healthcare in India. India Studies in Business and Economics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6104-2_4
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