Wasted Investments: Some Economic Implications of Childhood Mortality Patterns

Abstract

In the present paper, the author argues that both structures and levels of childhood mortality patterns have important implications for family economies in historical and in developing societies. Where mortality is high or when its neonatal component is low relatively to the probabilities of death at higher ages, economies tend to suffer because parental investments in bearing and rearing the children who die are greater. These investments can best be measured in terms of time, especially mothers' time. In unfavourable mortality regimes, a far greater part of a woman's activity is dedicated to children who eventually die, thus limiting the time and energy available for other productive activities. In this way, adverse infant mortality patterns can be seen as an independent variable, an important contributing factor to the vicious circle of poverty and underdevelopment.