Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Sociology

First Advisor

Kathleen Broussard

Abstract

Although, child mortality in Nigeria has declined significantly over the past three decades, the country still has one of the highest rates in the world. The inverse relationship between maternal education and child survival is well established, but the mechanisms by which education impacts mortality remain underexplored. This study assessed the mediating effect of maternal literacy in the relationship between child mortality and maternal education, extending prior work that focused primarily on mothers with low education levels. Using the data from the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, I analyzed 24,865 mothers who had at most secondary education as well 67,005 children under five years of age born to these mothers between 2008 and 2018. Child survival time was modeled using Cox proportional hazard regression, using mothers’ years of schooling as the primary exposure and mothers’ reading skills as a hypothesized mediator, to examine the role of literacy in child mortality. Analyses were stratified by maternal level of education and adjusted for child, maternal, household, and contextual characteristics. Reading skills varied significantly across years of schooling, reflecting a weak alignment between formal education and functional literacy. Although the hazards of child mortality were lower among primary-educated mothers with more reading skills, this relationship was no longer significant after adjusting for additional sociodemographic controls. Among secondary-educated mothers, reading skills were not significantly associated with child mortality. These results motivate future research to explore alternative mechanisms linking mother’s education and child mortality

Rights

© 2026, Kayode Ibraheem

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