The objective of this study is to examine the zonal differences in the role wealth, education and religion play in child and infant mortality in Nigeria. This study utilized 2003 and 2008 DHS pooled data of Nigeria. Logistic regression analysis technique is used to examine the difference in odds of mortality between the different wealth quintiles within urban and rural areas. The study used logistic regression technique to enable us to obtain the odds ratio of which group has lower or higher odds of child mortality based on wealth quintile and on geographic location in the various zones of Nigeria. Our findings show that education and wealth are significant factors in explaining the urban-rural differences in infant and child mortality rates in Nigeria. We also find that the risk of both infant and child mortality is higher in the Northwest and Northeast zones of Nigeria than any other zones. Also, the southwest region has the lowest risk of both infant and child mortalities in Nigeria. We find no evidence of statistically significant difference in the risk of both infant and child mortalities between the urban and rural poorer and poorest wealth quintiles in Nigeria. This study established the differentials in infant and child mortality in the six geo-political zones of Nigeria. Our results also show that there is a disparity in both infant and child mortalities between the urban and rural areas.
JEL classification numbers: I14, I130
KeyWords: Infant and child mortality rate, wealth and maternal education, six geo-political zones.
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