Factors Affecting Child Mortality in the Asian Region

Abstract

The child mortality rate is defined as the number of deaths of children under the age of five per thousand live births. It is considered as a measurement of the health status of any population. This study examines the factors affecting child mortality in the Asian region. Multiple regression analysis was used to find the effect of five factors, including adult female literacy rate, fertility rate, adult female labor force participation, current health expenditure, and population growth rate, on child mortality in the Asian region. The quantitative research approach was used to conduct the research, and the data was collected from the World Bank reports using the secondary data collection method. The objective of this research is to determine the impact of adult female literacy rate, fertility rate, adult female labor force participation, current health expenditure, and population growth rate on child mortality. To test the impact of adult female literacy rate, fertility rate, adult female labor force participation, current health expenditure, and population growth rate on child mortality, five hypotheses were built. According to the hypothesis testing, research reveals that there is no significant association between adult female labor force participation, current health expenditure, and population growth rate with child mortality. However, there is a significant association between adult female literacy rate and the fertility rate on child mortality. The coefficients were evaluated to determine the impact of each component on child mortality. Results showed that female literacy rate had a negative impact and fertility rate had a positive impact on child mortality. According to the findings of this study, it can be recommended to policymakers to increase female education levels in the Asian region, and countries in the Asian region that have a higher fertility rate should increase female knowledge about proper birth spacing, birth control methods, and reproductive health.