Incomes and Child Health in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1990–2018

This paper investigates the relationship between real incomes in Sub-Saharan African countries during 1990–2018 and child wellbeing. A new UNICEF-WHO-World Bank database of child growth and malnutrition and annual measures of child mortality from the World Development Indicators are employed. Changes in real incomes are related to changes in these measures. Real incomes are found to be strongly negatively conditionally associated with stunting, underweight and child mortality. The fraction of each country’s export revenue derived from major non-agricultural export commodities in 1990 is then used to construct a counterfactual value of export revenues. This measure is used to predict real incomes in a country in a year. The impact of incomes on child mortality outcomes is then assessed. Instrumental variables results suggest that improved incomes may have causally reduced neonatal and under-five mortality.