The Role of Early Childbearing on Child Health Outcomes in Punjab (Article)

Early Childbearing is a major social and public health concern in developing countries. The study explores the role of early childbearing on child health outcomes in Punjab, Pakistan. Using the newly available data, Multiple Index Cluster Survey for Punjab 2017-18, the paper aims to test the association between early childbearing and child health outcomes both in the short and long term. Since early childbearing decision is influenced by a wide array of factors which include individual, household as well as social and cultural norms; the paper employs cluster & household fixed effects model to deal with the issue of omitted variable bias. The empirical results suggest that early childbearing exerts a negative impact on child health outcomes. The findings of the study are also robust to changing the specification of early childbearing as well as the data set. This study adds to the existing literature by providing insights into the strong influence of social and cultural norms in influencing childbearing decisions.