Moving Beyond the Mother-Child Dyad: Does Women's Education at the Community-Level Reduce Gender Bias in Child Health in Rural India.

The argument that maternal education is critical for reducing gender differentials in child health is commonplace in academic and policy discourse, although significant facets of the relationship remain empirically and theoretically challenged. Evidence remains mixed and while some analyses consistently suggest that maternal education reduces gender bias in child health outcomes, another body of literature argues that education can make mothers more effective in discriminating against daughters in strongly gender inequitable culture. This study contributes to the debate by examining the contextual effects of women's education on children's health in rural districts of India. Multilevel analyses of data from the 1994 Human Development Profile Index and the 1991 district-level Indian Census will be used to demonstrate that a positive and significant relationship exists between the proportion of female literates in a district and reduced gender bias in child health within that district, above and beyond the child's own mother's education as well as district-level socioeconomic development and healthcare amenities. However, results also indicate that the effect of maternal education cannot be downplayed. The paper concludes by discussing study limitations and policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]