The impact of democracy and media freedom on under-5 mortality, 1961-2011

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Wigley S., Akkoyunlu-Wigley A.

SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE, vol.190, pp.237-246, 2017 (SCI-Expanded, SSCI, Scopus) identifier identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 190
  • Publication Date: 2017
  • Doi Number: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.08.023
  • Journal Name: SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.237-246
  • Keywords: Democracy, Media freedom, Under-5 mortality, Panel data analysis, Country fixed effects, CROSS-NATIONAL ANALYSIS, REGIME TYPE, HEALTH, POOR, DICTATORSHIP, GOVERNMENT, PROVISION
  • Open Archive Collection: AVESIS Open Access Collection
  • Hacettepe University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

Do democracies produce better health outcomes for children than autocracies? We argue that (1) democratic governments have an incentive to reduce child mortality among low-income families and (2) that media freedom enhances their ability to deliver mortality-reducing resources to the poorest. A panel of 167 countries for the years 1961-2011 is used to test those two theoretical claims. We find that level of democracy is negatively associated with under-5 mortality, and that that negative association is greater in the presence of media freedom. These results are robust to the inclusion of country and year fixed effects, time-varying control variables, and the multiple imputation of missing values. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.