Do Battered Mothers Have More Fetal and Infant Deaths? Evidence ...
Do Battered Mothers Have More Fetal and Infant Deaths? Evidence ...
Do Battered Mothers Have More Fetal and Infant Deaths? Evidence ...
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<strong>More</strong> <strong>Infant</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Fetal</strong> <strong>Deaths</strong> among <strong>Battered</strong> Women? <strong>Evidence</strong> from India 9Table 2. Poisson Regression of Involuntary <strong>Fetal</strong> Death Rate Upon Mother’sExperience of Conjugal Assault, Plus Control Variables: NFHS IIIncidence Rate Ratio St<strong>and</strong>ard Errore ß of ß t..Conjugal Assault (0=n;1=y) 1.22** .09 2.66Age at interview (yrs.) .80*** .01 -24.51Age at 1 st Birth (yrs.) 1.40*** .03 16.73Age at Marriage (yrs.) .97 .03 -1.30South (0=n;1=y) 1.86*** .19 6.09Muslim(0=n;1=y) .32*** .06 -5.67Asset Ownership Index 1.24*** .04 7.61Mother literate (0=n;1=y) 1.30* .14 2.44Husb<strong>and</strong>’s education ref.: NoneHusb<strong>and</strong> with some primarySchool (0=n;1=y) 1.20* .09 2.52Husb<strong>and</strong> with secondarySchool or more (0=n;1=y) .96 .13 -.27Rural (0=n;1=y) 1.05 .10 .55Total no. Children Ever Born (offset)F(11,322) = 725.59*** .Note: The data in this table have been weighted to reflect the complex sampling design. UnweightedN = 80,862; weighted N = 404,310.* p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.Q2: <strong>Do</strong> Indian mothers have a larger number of live births that die in infancy if they report ahistory of physical assault by their husb<strong>and</strong>s?Ceteris paribus, women with any history of conjugal physical assault produce live birthswith an incidence rate of infant mortality that is only 1.02 times as large as for women reporting nohistory of conjugal violence (p > .05, Table 3). In other words, the answer to Question 2 is no.Is it possible that husb<strong>and</strong>s who inflict physical injuries on their pregnant wives <strong>and</strong> causespontaneous abortions (a possibility raised by our affirmative answer to Q1) might also commitinfanticide on the newborns before they reach the first birthday (the newborns becoming unreportedcases of infant mortality)? Female infants would be at special risk, since the preference for sons iswidespread in India (see Haub <strong>and</strong> Sharma 2006: 7-8). An indirect method of detecting femaleinfanticide would be to search for a larger infant – girl death rate attributable to “accidents” or“injuries.” Unfortunately, the cause of infant deaths was not asked in the questionnaire for the 1998-99 NFHS. This question must be left to future studies.
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