How Does Schooling Influence Maternal Health Practices? Evidence from Nepal

Women’s schooling is associated with much of the world’s improvement in child survival and maternal and child health since 1960. Evidence for these associations is widely interpreted as representing a causal influence of formal education on health. The relationships of variations in female school attendance at the levels of individuals, populations, and historical periods to reproductive health outcomes raise new questions for comparative educational research concerning the process involved. This article reports the results of a survey designed to test a theoretical model positing that literacy skills acquired by girls in school are retained into their adult years, facilitating their exposure to public health messages in the media, which in turn influence the health knowledge affecting their health behavior as mothers. This survey was conducted in Nepal, a low-income country in which both mass schooling and demographic transition are recent developments, using direct assessment of literacy skills instead of the self-reports or imputation from school attainment levels often used in demographic and health surveys. After a brief review of the relevant studies to provide an empirical basis for