Impact of Female Literacy and Female’s Labor force Participation on Infant Mortality: Case of Three South Asian Countries

Abstract

The present study aimed at understanding the impact of Females’ Labor Force Participation (FLFP) and Female Literacy (FL) on Infant Mortality (IMR). An effort has been made to investigate that how these factors affect IMR particularly in developing countries such as Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. For this purpose, FL and FLFP have been taken as proxy measures of women empowerment to analyze their impact on IM. For testing this assumption, data from World Bank for the period of 1989 to 2015 of three South Asian countries, including Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have been taken for analysis. The Secondary data analysis was performed by using regression analysis for estimating the impact of the above said variables on infant mortality rate. The findings of the study show that FL and FLFP have negative impact on IMR. The study suggested that increment in labor force participation and literacy rate of females are the significant determinants/ predictors of decline in infant mortality rate and hence of overall progress and development of country. Further, the study also provides policy makers with a useful guide to devise such favorable policies to achieve/meet sustainable development goals.