Socio-economic interrelations between child education, health and family size

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to identify the nature of the relationship between the quality and quantity of children in the 8aringo district of Kenya. The analytical framework was the child quality-quantity model based on the consumer theoretical framework. Utilizing a static cross-sectional simultaneous model the relative magnitude and statistical significance of the influence of specific economic variables on this two aspects of children were estimated. The main variables which were considered are : opportunity cost of time (measured by parental wages proxed by the number of years completed in school since labour market is undeveloped in the rural areas), assets (in this case land), market determined income, parental ages (as control exogenous variables) and the availability of facilities for health (proxed by an index of mortality) and education. Three main hypotheses are tested: (i) the quality and quantity of children are inversely related. Multiple regression technique was used to analyze the cross-sectional primary data which was collected mainly from rural .Q6ringo district. The sample included 357 household covering all the divisions in the district. (ii)· the level of child quality varies directly with the VI availability of educational and health utilizable facilities . .The degree of utilization is determined by the level of '- . parental education which is a measure of the cost of information and the opportunity cost of rearing children. (iii) the level of the quantity of children varies directly with the ownership of assets, parental age plus poor service environment and inversely with the parental education, income, area of residence (urban or rural), use of birth control devices and household size. Quantity and quality of children are directly related implying that the area under study is still in the first stage of socio-economic development and therefore children are a 'normal good'. Empirical evidence indicate that the quality of children is positively influenced by parental education, income, developed service environment, size of family, modern items owned and negatively by size of households, area of residence. On the other hand quantity of children is influenced positively by acres of land owned, parental age, developed service environment, area of residence, size of household, father's education and inversely by mother's education, income, utilization of birth control devices. Two policy recommendations that emerge from the findings of the study are that: (i) to increase the quality of children there IS a need to improve the educational and health facilities. (ii) to decrease sizes of families, policies to reduce desired family sizes should be introduced and the methods for birth control be made readily available.