Parental Education and Infant Mortality in India: Understanding the Regional Differences

This study examines the effect of parental education in the regional variation of infant mortality in India. The results are very robust to different potential confounding factors including socio-economic, demographic, accessibility to health care, and sanitation related variables. The policy implication of the study include, providing education to the parents, particularly to the mothers of backward regions or states. Besides parent’s education, attempt should also be made to increase the scope of getting mass media exposure and higher level of socio-economic empowerment of the mother to reduce the infant mortality in India