Abstract/Details

CHILD MORTALITY AND ITS CORRELATES IN SUDAN

FARAH, ABDUL-AZIZ MOHAMED.   University of Pennsylvania ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  1981. 8127020.

Abstract (summary)

The level of child mortality, q(2), based on the 1973 Census of Sudan, is 0.170 with an inter-regional range extending from 0.121 to 0.253. The regional variations of q(2) are consistently marked by variations in socioeconomic traits of the regions. The coefficient of correlation of the regional q(2) with per capita income is -0.98, with female literacy rate is -0.80, and with population-doctor ratio is 0.93. Assessing demographic stages of the regions, the analysis resulted in a negative correlation coefficient of -0.65 between q(2) and total fertility rates. Areas of lowest fertility (poorer areas) are also areas of highest mortality and vice versa.

Employing two different methods for examining the trend of child mortality, the thesis demonstrates a very insignificant rate of infant and child mortality decline during the period 1956-1973.

The expectation of life at birth for the country around 1973 was 46 years, with 55 years for the northern Sudan and 38 years for the southern Sudan.

Multivariate analyses of child mortality covariates based on census data and on the 1975 survey specific to women in Khartoum metropolitan area resulted in the following: first, mother's and father's years of schooling are found to be significant, but the regression coefficient of maternal education is four times higher than that of paternal education in both national and Khartoum's regression equations. Second, analysis of both data sets show that female labour force activity is positively and significantly related to child mortality. Third, husband's occupation is an effective explanatory variable in the national regression and not significant in Khartoum. Fourth, quality of housing conditions (in national analysis) and modern goods (in Khartoum) are significant and work in the expected direction. Fifth, various analyses in Khartoum showed that woman's status in the family and society, her place of birth, her contraceptive behavior, are evidently strong variables in mortality equations. Sixth, controlling for individual characteristics, the national regression model indicated that the dramatic variations of mortality in Sudan are regional in nature. The net contributions due to differences in regional traits are overwhelming in overall mortality differentials.

Finally, a study on the effects of child mortality on fertility desires and contraceptive behavior indicated the following. First, the "replacement effect" in terms of fertility desires as a result of experiencing one more death is very strong. One additional death increases prevalence of desire for more children by 9 percent, while the effect of having one more live birth reduces it by 9 percent--equal coefficients, with the same level of significance, but opposite in sign. Second, evidently the strong replacement desire is not effectively translated into replacement behavior in terms of fertility control, suggesting a lack of adjustment of child mortality-induced behavior to induced desire. Third, demographic variables are found to be more predictive of reproductive desire than socioeconomic variables, while the latter are more predictive of reproductive behavior than the former. Fourth, the analysis shows that women in this society are not only attempting to reach some norm of family size, but also striving to attain higher proportions of sons among living children--a factor that may have various ramifications in the policy area.

Indexing (details)


Subject
Demographics;
Demography
Classification
0938: Demography
Identifier / keyword
Social sciences
Title
CHILD MORTALITY AND ITS CORRELATES IN SUDAN
Author
FARAH, ABDUL-AZIZ MOHAMED
Number of pages
282
Degree date
1981
School code
0175
Source
DAI-A 42/06, Dissertation Abstracts International
Place of publication
Ann Arbor
Country of publication
United States
ISBN
9798661596697
University/institution
University of Pennsylvania
University location
United States -- Pennsylvania
Degree
Ph.D.
Source type
Dissertation or Thesis
Language
English
Document type
Dissertation/Thesis
Dissertation/thesis number
8127020
ProQuest document ID
303154714
Copyright
Database copyright ProQuest LLC; ProQuest does not claim copyright in the individual underlying works.
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/docview/303154714