Maternal education and infant mortality decline: The evidence from Indonesia, 1980–2015

BACKGROUND Better maternal education has been credited with making a major contribution to infant mortality decline. Most of the evidence is based on cross-sectional analyses, which show a strong correlation between maternal education and infant mortality. However, cross-sectional analyses do not provide an estimate of the contribution of maternal education to infant mortality decline. OBJECTIVE The major objective is to obtain a more accurate estimate of the contribution of maternal education to infant mortality decline. METHODS Pooling data from all available phases of the Demographic and Health Survey, this article presents a longitudinal, individual-level analysis of the determinants of trends in infant mortality in Indonesia. RESULTS Better maternal education explains 15% of the infant mortality decline in Indonesia from 1980 to 2015. CONTRIBUTION The article presents the results of the largest individual-level study of its kind in terms of length of the period covered and number of infants involved.