WOMEN EMPOWERMENT AND INFANT MORTALITY IN PAKISTAN: Micro Data Evidence

Women empowerment has its significance for the economic and social development of countries; specifically, women empowerment is rendered important for child health. Child health being part of sustainable development goals (2030) can be traced through reduced infant and child mortality rates. Owing to the importance of women empowerment for the infant mortality, the present study is an attempt to analyze the impact of women empowerment on infant mortality in Pakistan, utilizing the data from Demographic and Health Survey (DHS-VI) of United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The sample consists of 24,201 individuals. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) has been employed to measure the women empowerment using education level, employment status, asset holdings and decision-making power. Besides women empowerment, other socioeconomic, demographic and biological variables have been included as regressors. Logit model has been employed for the estimation of the determinants of the infant mortality. The results show that women empowerment significantly reduces the infant mortality. The study recommends that policy makers ought to introduce broad socioeconomic interventions aiming at the wellbeing of both women and their infants.