The effects of mother’s migration on under-five mortality in Kenya

Abstract

Using the 2008-09 Kenya Demographic Health Survey Data for the whole country and with focus on children below age five, this paper examines the effects of mother‟s migration status controlling for other proximate factors (socio-economic, environmental and bio-demographic characteristics) on under-five mortality in Kenya. A total of 6079 children born 59 months before the survey are used in the analysis. Cox proportional hazard model was used to assess the effect of mother‟s migration status (whether migrant or non-migrant) on the survival chances of children under the age of five, controlling for other explanatory variables. The general results of multivariate analysis show that children born of migrant mothers face a higher risk of mortality compared to those of non-migrant mothers. The results of the life table reveal that the probability of death of children of migrant mothers is higher at 0.09 than that of children born of non-migrant mothers 0.07, thus supporting the hypothesis that the survival status of children under the age of five years in Kenya is associated with their mother‟s migration status. Generally, mother‟s migration explains a considerable component of the differentials in child survival before age five in Kenya. Several other factors, including parents‟ education, mother‟s current age, birth order, wealth index, mother‟s, occupation, type of toilet facility and source of water have a significant predictive power on child survival. However, marital status of the mother, wealth index, type of toilet facility and education were found to only affect the migrants. On the other hand, current age of the mother, wealth index, occupation and source of water were found to affect non-migrants