A Step toward Realization of Vision 2030; Reduction in Child Mortality: New Evidence from South Asian Countries

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of economic and social factors on child mortality in South Asian countries. Economic factors consist of economic growth, private and public health expenditures while social factors are comprised of access to improved water sources, access to improved sanitation facilities, and environmental quality. This study collected the data from World Development Indicators (WDI) over the period of 1967-2016. This study utilized Johnson co-integration test to investigate the long run co-integration. The study found that long-run co-integration exits among the modeled variables. The results of long-run co-integration recommend that Auto Regressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) is appropriate to examine the short-run relationship among the modeled variables. The study found that access to improve water and sanitation facilities, environmental quality, total health expenditure, and economic growth significantly and negatively affect child survival. Moreover, the study has also investigated private and public health expenditure on child mortality separately and found that the size of the impact of public health expenditure is greater than private health expenditure. This study guides the policy makers and international agencies that in order to meet the required rate of child mortality they should invest more in the health sector and should provide clean water, sanitation facilities to its residents. Moreover, the study recommends that the government should revise environmental policies to lower the child mortality rate.

Keywords

• Child mortality
• Water
• sanitation
• the ARDL model
• Social factors
• Economic factors