The determinants of infant mortality in Turkey: A disaggregated analysis

Abstract

Infant mortality rates drastically declined in Turkey during the last two decades but there are still wide variations within the country. For example, the infant mortality rate in the East region is twice as high as the West-South region average. This paper investigates the socioeconomic and demographic determinants of infant mortality at the regional level using Turkey Demographic and Health Survey, 1998 and 2003 data. Estimates of the zero-inflated negative binomial models find a number of significant determinants of infant mortality, including health, education and socioeconomic status variables. However our regressions results establish that the rural mortality model is different from the urban mortality model and that further significant differences exist between regional models.