Mortalidade infantil, estado nutricional e características do domicílio: a evidência brasileira

Abstract

The economic model of the household predicts that child survival and indicators of child nutritional status should respond to parental investments in resources and time in a similar way. Using survey data from Brazil, this paper tests whether household characteristics affect child survival, height (conditional on age) and weight (conditional on height) . Maternal education has a very strong positive effect on both child height and survival. Both outcomes are affected by father's education although to a lesser degree in the case of survival. Income effects are significant but small in magnitude. Parental height has a large positive impact on child height for age and on survival rates even after controlling for all other observable characteristics. This is the first time the association between child survival and parental height has been demonstrated empirically with microlevel data. There is, in addition, considerable inter-regional variation in Brazil; maternal education, height and household income tend to have bigger effects in the poorer Northeast.