Commentary: Maternal education accentuates girls' mortality advantage over boys'

Abstract

Maternal education is one of the major forces that improve child health. Empowering women with education is associated with decreasing child mortality across and within societies for boys and for girls.1–4 In this issue of the IJE, Monden and Smits analyse the Demographic and Health Surveys data and report that increasing maternal education is associated with reduced female disadvantage in under-five mortality.5 Based on historic child mortality data from societies with arguably little gender discrimination, the authors estimate a ‘gender-neutral’ male-female mortality rate ratio (MRR)—for under-five mortality this is 1.25—and show that in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, child MRR is below the ‘gender-neutral’ MRR. This relative female disadvantage is strongest among non-educated mothers and decreases with maternal education.