Agricultural droughts and under-five mortality in Côte d’Ivoire: Differential impacts across social and demographic groups

Abstract Little research explores how climate extremes affect early childhood mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, despite great vulnerability to both climate extremes and high rates of early childhood mortality. Although there have been substantial improvements in early childhood mortality in recent decades, climate change threatens to offset this progress. Focusing on the case of Côte d’Ivoire, I combine individual-level data from the Demographic and Health Surveys with high-resolution climate data to investigate how and when in-utero exposure to severe agricultural droughts influences early childhood mortality. I find that in-utero exposure to severe agricultural droughts increases the probability of under-five mortality, and most recent droughts seem to exert the greatest impact. I also find that boys and children born into families with little to no formal education are highly vulnerable to drought exposure during gestation. Maternal education mitigates the negative impact of droughts on under-five survival, regardless of urban or rural residence, suggesting that its protective effects may be linked to specific knowledge, behaviours, and practices that highly educated mothers employ rather than their living environment. These findings carry important lessons for policymakers, emphasising the need for policies that enhance educational opportunities for parents and develop targeted interventions for boys and children from families with little formal education.