Estimating the Determinants of Child Health When Fertility and Mortality Are Selective

This paper estimates the determinants of child mortality and child health allowing for the possibility that samples of children are choice-based, reflecting prior selective fertility and mortality behavior. Parameter identification is the most serious practical problem in controlling for fertility and mortality selection. Identification is achieved by imposing a random-effects structure on the error correlation matrix for the set of fertility, mortality, and health behaviors. Fertility selection is found to be statistically significant in the estimation of the determinants of mortality in all 14 Sub-Saharan DHS data sets studied, and fertility and mortality selection is found to be significant in the determination of child height in Zambia. Nevertheless, most parameters are little changed when selection is accounted for.