Women's Schooling and Health Service Use in a Rural Maya Community

Zambrano, Isabel M, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Since 1960, analyses of national censuses and large-scale sample surveys have shown that a woman's school attendance is negatively correlated with her fertility and her offspring's mortality even when other socioeconomic factors are controlled. One theory about this relationship is that maternal schooling is a factor in the "uptake" of maternal and child health services by influencing a women's openness to mass means of communication and her decontextualized language skills. This postdoctoral fellowship research project pursues this insight into the importance of communicative means by examining the relative effects of more proximal and culturally accessible health services. This research into the schooling-sensitive communicative barriers of the health system will be conducted at a well regarded clinic in a rural, highland Maya community in Chiapas, Mexico.