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Full text PDF - International Policy Network

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76 Fighting the Diseases of Povertyaffects immunizations, but not when other controls are added.Reaching children appears to be more of an impediment due to dispersedpopulation or inadequate infrastructure. Per capita incomemay not be as important to increasing immunization given the generosityof donor funds, particularly for vertical programs like immunizations.The variable for women’s education, a key input inwhether children get immunized, is best captured by average yearsof schooling for females over age 15. However, the sample sizedeclines by 40 countries when this variable is used, so the completionrate of females, the proportion of girls who are currently finishingschool, is used as a proxy because girls’ current achievementsare a reflection of their mothers’ support for education and theirability to make household decisions about their children’s education.Table 2 shows the OLS results for child mortality. The R2s arealmost 50 per cent higher than those for measles immunizationcoverage, with income per capita and ethno-linguistic fractionalizationexplaining most of the variation. Average years of femaleschooling doesn’t have an effect, although girls’ completion ratesdo. Average years of female education becomes significant, however,when ethno-linguistic fragmentation is left out, suggesting eithersome substitution between these factors, or when the loss for somany observations affects the relationship. Governance is not significant,but it matters when the education variable is female educationrather than completion. Road density and urbanization (notshown) have no effect, and that pattern persists with other models.The established inverse relationship between income and child mortalitymakes these results unsurprising, but the lack of importanceof female education is odd given the strength of the relationship incountry level studies. These results provide the point of departurefor a more narrow focus on both the country level issues and thefactors that directly influence health care delivery.The next section summarizes accumulated evidence on specificcomponents of governance and corruption, including: perceptionsof corruption and performance; management challenges in public

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