Economic Development, Maternal Education and Infant Mortality in Türkiye 1960-2010

This study revisits the unusual relationship between infant mortality and economic growth in Türkiye between 1960 and 2010, considering the effects of female education. The independent influences of economic development and women’s education on infant mortality are assessed using fractional polynomial regressions applied to World Bank data on 108 middle-income countries, as well as indirect mortality estimations and logistic regressions with Turkish census data from 1985 to 2000 and Demographic and Health Surveys from 1993 to 2008. Results show that Türkiye consistently displayed higher levels of infant mortality in comparison to other countries at similar levels of economic development, but eliminating significant within-country disparities in women’s primary and secondary school education could have removed both subpopulation-level heterogeneity in death rates and population-level excess deaths.